Shattered Worlds
by ModernRomeo
Summary: AU. Fleeing the ruins of his home, Naruto finds a home in another dimension, another Konoha. Can he prevent it from destruction? And if so, at what cost?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or anything related to it. I wish I did though.

A/N: A few notes before you read this; this chapter follows canon up to the current chapter, or at least the general plotline and what's been divulged so far. Future chapters will not be rewritten to reflect changes in canon, nor will they reference it. This is an **Alternate Universe**, though the proper defination (for this story at least) is **Alternate Dimension**, as you will no doubt figure out in the next few chapters. Author notes in future chapters will summarize the changes from canon, explained up to that chapter. This is mostly done to remind people of what's happened, should they forget (so they don't have to reread previous chapters to remember what's happened). Also, feel free to be critical of this story in reviews, but if something is wrong don't just say "this sucks", but instead point out what you think is wrong. You may also use reviews to point out spelling/grammer goofs that my beta (and myself) didn't catch, as well as suggestions for possible pairings (if I decide to implement them). Most authors (not pointing fingers) sometimes forcefully write in a specific pairing, but I've decided that if the pairing were to be Naruto/Sakura (not saying it is), I wouldn't give her a secondary spot in the plot just for the sake of making their relationship obvious. Finally, yes, Naruto will be overly powerful in the begining of the story, but don't expect him to be have god-like abilities, an uber-bloodline, full control over the Kyuubi, and a jutsu library that exceeds Kakashi. It's not happening, as I detest stories that do that (though I do enjoy Super!Naruto stories), and it's not needed in this story as it is, as you will find in future chapters.

Also, if anyone is interested in adopting one of my abandoned stories (even those that I never posted because I lost interest), feel free to contact me about them. Review (leave a way of contacting you), or email, and I'll get back to you.

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Uzumaki Naruto paused in his running, sniffing the air for foreign scents, most notably the one belonging to Uchiha Madara. He knew he was being followed by someone, something, but he wasn't sure who or what it was, he just had a hunch it was the first Sharingan wielder. Sensing a change in the winds direction, he dodged to the left as a large chunk of trees were uprooted and tossed around like building blocks.

Naruto wasn't phased by the scene however, as it wasn't the first time he'd seen it happen. He'd been hunting Madara for two years, and fought him each time, even though he lost in each encounter. After the first two times Naruto felt Madara was toying with him, like he thought them chasing and fighting each other was a game he found entertaining time and again. Even though he knew it was a game, and he was being manipulated to continue to chase the original Uchiha, Naruto played out his role perfectly, never surprising the man, always playing into his traps.

Spending two years relentlessly chasing someone gave you an insight into their mind, how they worked, what they would overlook in a fight because **they** thought they were winning. While it was true the man was far stronger than Naruto could ever hope to be, he knew Madara was losing his edge. In each fight Naruto displayed what techniques he had, and Madara would show new techniques to keep his entertainment in the fight. It was a risky gamble, as the man stated "when I lose my interest in a fight, I kill the person responsible," numerous times, but if Naruto's plan went off as he hoped it would, this encounter would be their last one. He just had to get the man to drop his guard, which happened near the end of their fights.

Dodging a large _Goukakyuu_ headed in his direction, Naruto bit his thumb and smeared the blood to fulfill one requirement of a _Summoning_, his hands flashing the seals in less than a second. Once the smoke cleared, the blonde stood atop the _King of Toads_, Gamabunta, while waiting for Madara to summon his _Largest of Lizards_, Megalania, fighting nervousness and waiting for the black-haired man to make the first move.

If Naruto acted first, there was a good chance that Madara would pick up on his plan, which might make him act and kill the blonde. No doubt after killing the blonde, he would extract the Kyuubi and be able to control the world, which he couldn't let happen. Too much was riding on the line, most importantly the remaining survivors of Konoha, who were fortunate enough to be out of the country at the time the Uchiha destroyed and pillaged it. It incensed Naruto, even to this day, four years later, and he would stop at nothing to kill the man and avenge all the people he had killed that day, and all he had killed up to that point.

The smoke cleared finally, and Naruto watched as Megalania jumped into the air towards them, while Gamabunta unsheathed his large katana strapped at his side. The plan was risky, and probably suicidal in the minds of everyone who could see it, but it was the only thing he **knew** could kill the man, even if Naruto died in the process. He just hoped he would live through it, as he didn't look forward to explaining to his dead friends the exact reason why he was dead.

'**You doubt the power of the great Kyuubi human?**' a familiar, furry voice pipped up, forcing Naruto to push all negative feelings from his mind. It wouldn't be wise to lose his composure and give away his plan to Madara, and took all willpower to keep it.

'Considering you don't have the best track record for going through with your plans, yes. How many times have you threatened to kill me now? 100? 1000? I honestly lost count years ago, as you've yet to even harm my body.'

'**You say that now, human, but remember what happens if you **die** during the plan. I get to escape this prison and you get to watch while I destroy the world,**' the Kyuubi's voice fled his mind as swiftly as it entered it, though Naruto knew the fox was trying to inspire confidence with empty threats. He knew the fox couldn't escape his prison if Naruto died, as he tried numerous times when the blonde was on deaths door. Each time he lost a significant portion of his power to Naruto, whose chakra coils absorbed and helped increase his chakra reserves, while reversing some of the damage caused by transforming using Kyuubi's demonic chakra.

As he felt Megalanias shadow eclipse his body, he whispered to Gamabunta to "force Madara away from Megalania", so he could "finish this fight, once and for all,". Though he didn't hear an acknowledgment from the toad, he knew he was heard, Gamabunta simply didn't want to give away the plan, even if he didn't know what it was.

His katana poised, the toad struck out at the smaller summon, forcing it to shift in mid-air to avoid the potentially-fatal strike. The diversion had worked properly, with Madara jumping off of his own summon to land on Naruto's, and dashed towards him, a kunai sitting in his hand and ready to engage Naruto's. It didn't however, as the blonde used a _Kawarimi_ to attempt to strike at the mans exposed back, not surprised when he used his _Spirit Cloak_ technique to avoid the blow, as he always did.

While still under the effects of _Spirit Cloak_, which made him intangible and free to evade any technique, he attacked with his own counter, breaking past Naruto's defense and lodging itself in his stomach. "Is that all, Uzumaki? I expected more of a fight than this. You're usually so good about putting up an entertaining fight, what's different this time?"

Coughing up a small amount of blood, Naruto smirked, "This time? I'm not playing by your rules this time, Uchiha Madara. This time, **you** are the pawn, and I'm the king. This time...you die," hands flashing a complicated string of seals, shouting out a strange word in an unknown language. According to Kyuubi, it was a word of power in the tongue of the demons, but he took Kyuubi's statements with a grain of salt, as he tended to exaggerate a bit.

The look of shock and surprise on Madara's intangible face was priceless, as Naruto's summon disappeared along with the Uchihas, and in their stead was something very few had laid eyes upon, and lived to tell the tale.

Behind Naruto stood the tangible form of the Kyuubi, all nine tails flexing and whipping in anticipation, watching the two bugs in front of him. Naruto didn't seem affected by the appearance of the fox, though it was obvious Madara was, as he tried to escape with a _Shunshin_ but was frozen in place with a simple snap from Naruto's fingers. Confusion filled Madara's face at the seemingly innocent act, which caused Naruto's grin to widen.

"You may have been responsible for unleashing the demons upon this world, Uchiha Madara, but **I** am the one who wields the power to control them, power you cannot comprehend. While the Kyuubi you see doesn't contain his mind, it contains his essence and each power he was capable of while living. You are, in a short string of words, fucked beyond reason," Another snap of the fingers sent Madara dodging for cover from the Kyuubi's claws, obviously trying to figure out how to stop the personification of the fox-demon. Any offensive technique he threw was deflected, or had no visible effect on the apparition, and anytime he attempted to get close to Naruto was met with failure as one of the fox's tails blocked the way to him. Even his _Spirit Cloak_ was useless against him, as it seemed the fox could penetrate his intangible form, despite that not being physically possible.

The only thing he felt was left, was the Mangekyo Sharingan, to try and control the demon and force it back into the blonde's mind. Kyuubi seemed to stop after assaulting it with the Mangekyo, which Madara used to get close to the blonde, intent on finishing the fight. Normally he would have fled, but he had a feeling the Kyuubi would hunt him until he was dead, and he knew he wasn't able to run forever.

Naruto seemed unaffected by Madara getting close to him, if anything his smirk grew into a sadistic smile, causing red-flags to go up in the Uchiha's mind as he tried to escape. It seemed in vain however, as he felt himself bolted to the ground from fear.

"What you're feeling, is only a portion of the killing intent of the Kyuubi. If you felt the full brunt of it, you'd probably drop dead, or be extremely damaged mentally. Either way, you'd be helpless and incapable of defending yourself, or hurting other people ever again. But lets preform a test to see what happens when you piss off an ages-old demon, shall we?" Without a warning Madara felt a killing intent unlike any he had before, his mind told him to move or he'd be killed, while his body refused to move out of fear of retaliation. Less than ten seconds passed for the Uchiha, before he felt his body drop to the ground and his mind shut down; breaking a seal that Pein had placed upon his mind after each extracted Bijuu was sealed within the _Atlas_, a stone rumored to descend from the Heavens when the demons entered the plane of the mortals.

It was designed as a fail-safe in case Madara was killed before he could gain control over all nine tailed-demons, to destroy the world "if I can't have it, then no one else can." Releasing all eight demons simultaneously, the chakra output was enough to cause the weather to react violently, iring the fury of Mother Nature, stirring up a blizzard in the mountain-forest located in the southern region of Wind Country.

'**Something about this weather is...unnatural. As if something it's try to destroy the world,**' Kyuubi trailed off, earning a sarcastic reply from Naruto.

'No, I'm **almost** certain that Wind Country gets flash blizzards **in the middle of fucking summer**,' rubbing his arms and hands together roughly, the blonde tried to retain body heat to prevent freezing to death, though it was a futile attempt. He almost wished he had some fire jutsus to start a fire, but realized it would cause him to die faster due to losing chakra at an insane rate. Unbeknownst to him, his body was burning Kyuubi's chakra to maintain his body heat within a safe range, but the quickly dropping climates made his time of survival shorten with each ten degrees it dropped.

'Got any plans on getting us out of this blizzard? Or do I get the honor of freezing to death while you sit comfortably in my mind?'

'**...there is one. However it requires you to make a sacrifice. One I know you won't make on a whim.**'

'What kind of sacrifice are we talking? Losing my first-born to you? Turning gay? What?'

'**It requires you to flee this dimension, to seek refuge in another.**'

'And leave the survivors of Konoha to fend for themselves? Not a fucking chance in hell, fox.'

'**They're already dead, boy. Five minutes have passed since the storm started and others like this one have sprung up across the world. They died thirty seconds after the storm started, while you have only another minute before you too die from the elements.**'

Naruto was silent for a second, trying to decide whether or not he would flee from his home. 'How do I flee though? We never covered "how to run from a world-consuming storm" in the Ninja Academy, or not that I remember.'

His question was answered without words, as he felt his body being transported as though by a _Shunshin_, however his body felt...warm? He shook at his cold-induced shock to look around his new location, which looked like the interior of a hospital, besides the lack of dying people of course. White-washed walls filled the large thirty-foot by thirty-foot room, with a large bay-window which Naruto approached tentatively.

Outside the window was a lot of space, quite literally in fact. As far as he could see, Naruto felt like he was looking at one of those astrology maps Ino conned him into buying her for her sixteenth birthday, though instead of planets he noticed clusters of stars. Trying to lean outside of the window for a closer look caused a hand to grab him by the back of his shirt and pull him away from the window, the force of the pull causing him to stumble back and fall while he glared at the culprit.

"You're either a fool, or suicidal, Uzumaki Naruto," the culprit, a short man with brown hair and blue eyes, stated, earning a confused glance from the blonde.

"How do you know my name? And what's yours?" he asked, as he had never seen the man before in his life.

"I know your name, because I see everything. Hear everything. Do everything. I know of your exploits in your universe, how you were sealed with the Kyuubi no Kitsune, how you fought and killed Uchiha Sasuke, how you defeated Uchiha Madara, who in turn destroyed your home planet." he explained.

"Doesn't explain what your name is though, or exactly how you know those things. Or even **what** you are," Naruto grumbled.

"My name is incapable of being pronounced in your language, though I'm certain the Kyuubi would recognize it if I uttered it. What I am though...that is all up to interpretation on your culture. The culture of ninjas dub me the _Shinigami_, though my job doesn't entirely focus on killing people and taking their souls. I'm responsible for creating and destroying alternate dimensions, keeping the scales of good and evil tipped evenly, and making sure there is always someone, or something, to oppose a great force that threatens to topple it's existence."

"Fat lot of help that did," Naruto snorted, earning a small glare from the man, though he didn't reply right away.

"Yes, I realize that you're upset of your friends dying, but it was for the greater good. Your world had to die to prevent the deaths of numerous other worlds, which would have been catastrophic for their balance."

"Where do you get off deeming what's 'the greater good'? Who died and put you in charge?"

"Your father, did, boy. When Namikaze Minato summoned the _Shinigami_ to destroy the body of the Kyuubi and bind its soul to yours, it committed the one rule immortals must not break; he directly interfered with mortal affairs. Konoha was supposed to fall the night the Kyuubi attacked, and due to it inadvertently brought upon Uchiha Madara's goal for world domination via demons, and through it, the direct cause of the destruction of your planet. Because of it, I was appointed to overlook your dimension, and other ones similar to it, but due to my inexperience, I doomed another universe by spending too much time meddling in the other dimensions under my power."

"So what, you want me to step up and clean up your mess? Is that it?"

"No, **you** are going to repay **me** by preventing another dimension's fall."

"Repay you? When did I ever enter your debt?"

"When I prevented you from destroying another dimension when you leaned out the window. The window overlooks all the dimensions under my power, and through it I can see everything that's happening, and manipulate the outcomes of key events to garner appealing results. We cannot directly touch the dimension, not from the window, as it would bring about it's destruction and direct all it's beings to other dimensions they don't already populate."

"You make that sound like a bad thing."

"Because it is."

"How? I would think that sending people to other dimensions would help their chances of survival, to keep the balance, as you said."

"It's not that simple... You see, when we send other people to new dimensions, we _Shinigami_ are very careful in where we send them, we can't send them to a dimension where that person is thought to be dead, as it would cause immense backlash in the power scales. Even if a person was neither good or bad, a wild card would inadvertently tip the scales over the edge, and it would cause the dimension to be plunged into chaos. A person who is thought to be able to conquer death, even if they know they haven't, strikes fear into those who are easy to manipulate. In turn it would corrupt those thought to be incorruptible, and allow one side to gain permanent control over the dimension."

"Doesn't explain why it's a bad thing to directly touch a dimension from the window."

The _Shinigami_ sighed softly, grasping for the words to properly explain the situation. "If a dimension is touched, it sends all living beings to dimensions where they either don't live, or don't exist. In the case of a dimension where they don't exist, the scales aren't tipped, as a wild card can't exist in a person who was never born. In the case of a dimension where the person isn't alive, **they** are the wild card which ensures victory for whatever side can sway them to their side."

"What happens when a dimension is permanently controlled by one side?"

"We send in a group of immortals, to 'cleanse' the dimension of every living being, and let the dimension start anew."

"What happens to the immortals then? They would have broken your number one rule, that being you can't meddle in mortal affairs."

"They are condemned to that universe, to restart life and possibly stem it's corruption another time."

Naruto was quiet for a minute, thinking of the implications of the information he received from the _Shinigami_. "Then that means...my dimension was doomed the moment the demons landed, that the sealed demons were allowing Akatsuki run amok and gain control of my dimension."

"That is correct."

"...I'll do it. I'll prevent another dimension from falling, to repay my debt for almost making your job harder." Naruto resigned himself to his fate, feeling guilty for almost causing insurmountable damage to other dimensions. If he had touched that dimension, he would have the blood of numerous people on his hands, and he wasn't sure he could live with the stigma of being the destroyer of dimensions. Destroyer of ninjas, Uchiha, and Akatsuki? Sure, but not dimensions. That's where he drew the line for mass-scale genocide.

"Very well. Follow me," without a word, Naruto trailed after him, where he found him in a strangely familiar room.

"Why are we in my apartment in Konoha?" his first words out of his mouth, Naruto felt foolish for letting the impulse get by him. He had trained himself for years to not cut off other people in speeches, as he learned from the many concussions given to him by Sakura and Tsunade.

"Because when you enter the new dimension, you will awaken in it. You will be spending the next three years in it, and when you finally emerge, you will at the age of eight. However, time will not be rewinding, as that would undo the destruction of your dimension, which as you now realize, was meant to happen. Instead another dimension, one that was cleansed long ago, will be where you will now live. You never existed, as your mother was killed five years prior to when she met your father, and your father is still the Hokage of your village. Uchiha Madara is still alive, and plans to summon the demons for his own good, and you are to stop him from summoning them."

"And what about the Kyuubi? What will happen to him?"

"He will still be sealed within you, as he poses no threat, should he escape the seal holding him place. The technique to transport you drained his remaining chakra, and is unable to recover it due to the seals function. You, however, are in possession of all the chakra he had access too, but none of his techniques, as his mind still remains. This is where we shall part ways, Uzumaki Naruto. After this day we shall never meet again, even after you have defeated Uchiha Madara," The Shinigami stated, walking away from the blonde once and for all.  
--

A/N: Okay, chapter one, done and ready for reviews. Remember: you can be critical of my story (I enjoy hearing what's wrong with it), but don't just say "it sucks" without reason. Review responses will be addressed in the next chapter (which might be uploaded soon, depending on reception from readers).


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: A note about this chapter; it was originally part of chapter one but was split up to make the shift from talking to the Shinigami (after the destruction of life on his home planet/dimension) less jolting and a little smoother in tranisition. Well, that, and I wanted to expand a bit more on his experiences in his dimension (I consider it a version of canon, but I took some liberties with it and expanded on it) to start building up his character. This chapter won't contain any action, but focuses more on giving hints to how much the new dimension has changed in terms of characterzations and abilities. However don't expect every dirty little secret to be given away, as certain things are kept close to keep them a surprise, though I attempt to give hints of what might happen in the course of the story. As usual, be critical if you want, just keep it civilized. Though even if you say "I liked it", it lets me know that people are reading it. And chapter length will be increasing with the next chapter, and it'll contain some...interesting characterzations ;).

Brief summary of the last chapter: Uzumaki Naruto fights Uchiha Madara. Naruto kills him, but unwittingly triggers the release of immortals, dubbed "demons" by mortals, whose original task was the cleanse the dimension of all living life, and to begin the cycle of life anew. Fleeing his dimension for one that exists between each seperate dimension (as a sort of Purgatory), he is transported to another dimension, one that was recently "restarted", though the Uchiha Madara wishes to summon the "demons" for his own use. Naruto is tasked, by a being attributed as "Shinigami" by mortals, with stopping and killing him, telling him if he does not succeed he'll be killed when the "demons" are sent to cleanse the dimension again.

--

For the first time in his twenty-four years of living, Naruto had a dream he enjoyed, as opposed to despise because the Kyuubi decided it'd be fun to play "torture the Naruto" by having him relive some of the Kyuubi's most fond, and bloody, memories, often letting Naruto see the carnage through the foxes eyes and mind. But he enjoyed the dream, consisting of his most fond memories of Konoha.

His first date with Sakura, even though she said she wasn't interested in a "serious relationship" with the blonde even after giving him a kiss for "knowing how to treat a girl on a date". His first date with Ino went better, in his opinion, though he had a sinking suspicion it was due to her being the one to ask him out "because Sakura didn't". It lasted for more than one date as well, as they dated until the destruction of Konoha, during which she was killed. Her death hit him hard, but pushed him harder to take down the lone Uchiha, not for revenge for her, but revenge for everything who died protecting Konoha till their last breath. He told himself that it wasn't personal, but sometimes it felt like it, and caused him to step back and look at where he was going, questioning whether or not he knew what he was doing, or if he was simply going by instinct.

It put a lot of things into perspective, and brought up a slew of questions. Like what he planned on doing after killing Madara. Everyone he loved in Konoha was dead by Madara's hand, and a good number of the forces scattered across the Elemental continents were also decimated when the man wandered through their town. Ninjas were by no means extinct, as a number of villages were untouched, most notably Hidden Rain, and Hidden Sand, Naruto just didn't know what he would do, once the man was dead. At first, he told himself that he would figure that out "when it was done with", but now... now, now that the Uchiha was dead, he couldn't think of a thing that he'd do, now that it "was done with". It was disconcerting, to spend so much time focused on a single objective, without looking at the big picture, and figuring out how ill-planned it all was.

'This must have been how Sasuke felt after killing Itachi. Hollow, lonely, remorseful. I spent two years hunting Madara, to avenge everyone, and now...I regret the time I spent chasing him, when I could have instead spent that time training to fight him, like when I spent those three years training to bring Sasuke back. But... I have something he didn't; a second chance. A chance to fix prevent history from repeating itself, to prevent the fall of Konoha, the fall of the old man, the fall of Jiraiya...' his thoughts trailed off as it sunk in that with him having a clean slate he was given a chance to have friends without proving he wasn't just a loser, but instead someone they could count on. It made him anticipate the three years he would be spending in isolation, as that coupled with the ability to change this dimension to his pleasing, would allow him three extra years of training to prepare for the inevitable encounters with Akatsuki.

He spent most of his time training both his body and mind, starting with chakra control over his newly-expanded chakra reserves, taijutsu, and ninjutsu while also increasing his knowledge; from battle tactics recalled from missions he had under-taken, to what knowledge he had of the members of Akatsuki along with their fighting abilities and possible plans to counter-act them should he ever stumble across them. It was a year and six months into his isolation that he started to realize spent all his time focusing on dealing with the Akatsuki, even though he was given a chance to have friends, and a childhood, which brought up memories of how Sasuke acted whenever Naruto tried to be friendly with the boy: cold and uncaring. He slowed his training schedule down afterwards, as he did still have a year and a half of isolation left, and spent time wondering what he would do with his spare time both before and after the fall of the Akatsuki.

Initially he wanted to be the Hokage, but the more he dwelled on that idea, the more he realized the only reason he wanted the job was to be recognized by the citizens of Konoha, and prove he wasn't a loser. Since he was starting with a blank slate it wasn't as much of a drive anymore, but he figured it would be a good goal to aim for, while he figured what he really wanted to be in the meantime. The more he thought about his future, the more he began to realize how much the world would have changed without demons running around; it would mean the Yondaime would still be alive, and in control, and Gaara would be able to sleep and have a semblance of a family, while Naruto would still be cursed, but for the better. The topic of the Yondaime had never sat well with Naruto, having found out the man was his father two years after the destruction of Konoha, from Madara, which made him realize that since he was his son, and a splitting image of the man, he would have to change his look in case he didn't have a son for whatever reason.

While the first year and a half seemed to fly by for Naruto, the last part of his isolation seemed to drag by, though like the first part, he didn't notice it, instead dividing his time evenly between training and thinking about the future, trying to take his mind off of what the new universe would be like without demons; as Kyuubi popped up during his second year of isolation and pointed out that such a subtle difference between the universes would massively affect how everyone acted, and even how they would fight, both on and off the battlefield. It was enough to cause a headache as he spent a few months pondering exactly **what** would be affected, stopping after he realized that he wasn't a psychic, and thus unable to guess the outcomes of no demons. It was enough to tide him over however, as he felt the days drag on more and more as he reached exactly three years in isolation, stopping his training all together a few weeks before he would awaken in the new universe.

After putting a halt on all training, he began to wonder who he would be friends with and who might possibly be on his team, but like his attempts to guess the events that would happen, he stopped after garnering large headaches; instead deciding to sleep his remaining time away, taking advantage of the fact the current dimension made it so he didn't require food, water, or even air. However, out of habit, he indulged in those items, if only to prevent time in the future to re-train his body to eat when it was hungry, breathe when he needed it, and drink when thirsty. He also didn't require sleep, but choose to do it anyways, as he enjoyed the time's spent asleep, as it provided an escape that training couldn't; one in which he could do what he wished, without consequences.

The day before he was to appear in the new universe, he took a moment to look over his body, noting that it had de-aged in isolation without him paying attention to it. Visualizing a mirror within his mind, he watched as a full-length one appear before him, noting he had short brown hair, blue eyes, and stood just over four feet tall, though the brown hair looked the oddest on him.

'**The brown hair was my doing, boy,**' Kyuubi pipped up at the brunettes observation, taking him slightly by surprise, as he hadn't heard from the fox in over a year.

'Why?' he asked simply.

'**Because, your resemblance to your father is an uncanny one, one that would no doubt ruin your plan to stop the Akatsuki. I can change it back, if you so wish though.**'

'No...I...just didn't expect you to help me, really.'

'**Then you have many things to learn about me boy, not that I'd let you, of course.**'

Naruto was silent, following their conversation, wondering just exactly why the fox would help him, even if it was a small action that would prevent him from being caught over the coming years, but pushed it from his thoughts as the day started to slow down, while he started feeling more tired than he had in the last three years.

"Well, I guess this is where the story of the blonde-haired Uzumaki Naruto ends, and the brown-haired Uzumaki Naruto begins," he stated aloud, as he fell asleep in isolation for the last time, dreaming of things that could be.

The first thing Naruto noticed upon waking up, besides the fact he was in a bed that was definitely not his own, was the bright sunlight peeking through the shades, rudely rousing him from sleep, trying to get back to slumber-land but giving up after five minutes of the relentless sun telling him to get up. Giving up on getting any more sleep that day, Naruto rose from the bed, stretching due to sleeping on a strange bed, he wandered throughout the unusual apartment, which definitely looked to be placed in Konoha as he had a good view of the Hokage Mountain, noting it had only four faces etched on it, wondering where the fifth face was, belonging the old woman Tsunade, before it dawned in his mind.

He had been transported to the new universe, the one without demons, but still an Akatsuki. A universe where Konoha still stood, tall and proud, unaffected by the decimation caused by the Kyuubi, by the Sound, by Uchiha Madara...Where Naruto spent three years training and planning for, to hunt Madara and his lackey's to the end of the world, if it meant that Konoha would still stand if only for one more day.

But, before he could do that, he had to get to the Ninja Academy, where he was supposed to be at in twenty minutes and as he didn't wish to be tardy, he left in a hurry slamming his door shut in the process. He wasn't going to mourn the death of a man not yet dead, and that applied to more than just Iruka. Sakura, Shikamaru, Sasuke, old man Hokage, they wouldn't be mourned until they died in this universe, not before. The shock of seeing them alive would definitely impact him, he would ignore it, as he had a chance to enjoy his time with them, after the downfall of Akatsuki.

Grabbing the first pair of clothes he saw in his closet, which thankfully lack any semblance of the color orange and black, he rushed as fast as he dared through his new apartment, and bolted out the door into the once-familiar area surrounding his old apartment. Taking a moment to realize where he resided, he jumped from his first-story apartment awning and took off running when he landed, surprising a few civilians but shrugged it, assuming it was a Chuunin that was late to a mission. Finding the main street of Konoha was busy with activity, and noticing they didn't glare hatefully at him, just curiously, he jumped to the roof of the nearest building, and continued his race to the Academy on the rooftops, briefly aware of the ANBU patrolling the street but paying him no attention.

Arriving at the Academy with ten minutes to spare, he took a second to catch his breath, his small body not used to the exertion as it had grown accustomed to the subsistence-free isolation. Assuming that he was still in Iruka's class, he wandered in, noting that he was the first person, and took a seat near the back of the class, watching as the students trickled in, at first in pairs but as the bell rang, indicating the start of class, a large throng of students came in as Naruto spotted a few people he recognized from the fallen Konoha. Of the 'rookie nine' as they were called, Naruto didn't spot two people; Aburame Shino, and Hyuuga Hinata, but paid it no attention, assuming they were simply sick.

"Mind if I sit here?" a voice shook Naruto from his observations, looking to see a young, eight-year-old Uchiha Sasuke, indicating to the seat next to Naruto.

"No, I don't mind," Naruto stated, extending his hand in a handshake. "Name's Uzumaki Naruto, yours?"

Taking Naruto's hand and shaking it, he introduced himself, "Uchiha Sasuke, nice to meet you Naruto," he said pleasantly, sitting next to the blonde as the teacher, who Naruto recognized as the traitor Mizuki, took role call, taking note that Shino and Hinata's name weren't called from the list, making him wonder what became of the two silent-ninjas.

Deciding to look into their whereabouts at a later date, Naruto pushed them from his mind, as Mizuki introduced himself as their teacher for the next four years, and jumped into an in-depth list of what they would cover in the years to come. He started with chakra control, earning an internal groan from the blonde-turned-brunette as well as one from the black-haired boy next to him, earning a slight smile from the dimension-hopper.

Maybe this time around, it wouldn't be that bad, he thought to himself as Mizuki told his classmates to take notes, as he was going to start with explaining what chakra was, and it's many uses. Naruto, however, decided to try to catch the sleep that was robbed by the sunlight earlier that morning, but was rudely interrupted by an incoming eraser, which he deftly caught while stretching, noting a disgruntled Mizuki staring up at him.

"Can you tell me, Uzumaki Naruto, what the significance of water-walking is for a ninja?" the silver-haired teacher asked him, expecting him to say he didn't know the answer.

"It allows you to refine your chakra-molding abilities, to allow you to mold through a solid object, such as a shoe or a glove, which are usually worn to offset any disadvantage unusual terrain can provide. It can also be used as a good method of travel if you're going into territory that lacks ninjas, such as bandits and mercenaries," Naruto recited, having been asked the question many times while training with Jiraiya. At the time he didn't think it was significant, but now he knew it held some truth, even if Naruto still thought the theory was boring.

"That's...good job, Naruto," Mizuki stated after a moment of shock, surprised the brunette knew the answer to such an advanced question. Looking around, he noticed the rest of his students were staring up at the boy who surprised their teacher, before barking out that they should copy down that answer "as it might be on a test", though Naruto could hear, and see, his classmates whispering to each other about the "smart boy", while Sasuke simply started at the dimension-jumper in awe.

The rest of the class passed in relative boredom, as Naruto simply watched the class as Mizuki built on what Naruto explained about chakra-molding while having them copy down the significance of seals, and what they represented. Earning his interest, as it was one thing he wished he paid attention to growing up, he wrote detailed notes, but ignored the rest of the lessons taught as he'd gone over them many times in his past-life.

The lunch bell rang, shortly around noon, and the class slowly filed out to the court-yard, to stretch, socialize, and otherwise relax from the long five hours spent in the classroom. Naruto took refuge on the swings, basking in the shade provided by the trees they were attached too, while Sasuke followed behind him, who seemed to have dropped his awe-struck look and joined the brunette on the swings, opting to relax in the shade much like Naruto.

After a few minutes, a pair of boys, who Naruto recognized as Chouji and Shikamaru, made their way over to the boys,Chouji sticking out his hand in a handshake, "Name's Akimichi Chouji, nice to meet ya," which Naruto took and shook, introducing himself.

"Uzumaki Naruto, the pleasure's mine."

Sasuke, seeing the ease that Naruto greeted Chouji, offered his hand to the heavy-set boy, "Uchiha Sasuke," which he shook. "Who's he?" Sasuke asked, indicating the boy with his hair shaped like a pineapple. Seeing he was being talked about, he extended his hand slowly.

"Nara Shikamaru," he said simply, shaking both Naruto and Sasuke's hand. After breaking the ice, the four relaxed enough to start discussing class, mostly Naruto's upstaging of Mizuki with his knowledge on chakra-molding. Upon being asked how he knew so much about it, Naruto simply shrugged, saying that he rather liked reading books, as a half-lie, and the boys dropped it, continuing a discussion about class and the seals they were required to memorize before they graduated from the Academy. The rest of the lunch passed uneventfully, as did the rest of the day, leading Naruto to wonder how he would keep from going insane by the repetitiveness of lecture's he had heard millions of times over.

Not heading back to his apartment after leaving the Academy, he wandered aimlessly throughout Konoha, basking in the feeling of not being glared at for once in his life. Folding his hands behind his head, he walked for hours, until it was almost pitch black, afterwards climbing on top of the Hokage mountain and stared at the stars for what seemed like hours. While the security surrounding was certainly a lot tighter than he remembered it being, he managed to sneak by them with a few well-placed clones, all Henge'd as drunkards who lost their way home coming back from the bars, though he was sure the ANBU knew they were clones and were playing along for whatever reason. After all, it wasn't like the Hokage was here...right?

"It's a beautiful night out, isn't it?" A voice disrupted his train of thought, but he knew who it was without moving to face the stranger; he'd listened to many of the exploits of the Yondaime from both the Sandaime and Godaime, before he knew the man was his father, and knew that he would take time out of his schedule to simply stand on the Hokage mountain and let the stress from the day drip away in it's oddly-serene presence. It took every ounce of willpower to not jump up and scream dramatically at being scared, but he managed before he replied to the blonde leader.

"Yes, very beautiful," Naruto replied simply, trying to find the star constellations that Ino would go on and on about on such a clear night, but giving up after a few minutes of trying to imagine what a Big Dipper would look like. The dimension-jumper and the Hokage said nothing for what seemed like hours, but was actually just one hour, which Naruto was thankful as he didn't wish to talk with the older man at the moment, not sure if he felt he could see him as a father-figure or not. Feeling his body start to get tired, he stood and dusted himself off, bidding the Hokage a good night as he walked down part of the mountain, jumping the rest of the way when he felt he was out of range of the man.

His trip towards his apartment was uneventful, aside from bumping into an oddly familiar silver-haired ninja but he paid him no attention, his mind miles away, feeling content of living such a burden-free life. Even if the ploy was up the very next day, he wouldn't object, as for once in his life he felt as though he were home, and wouldn't give the feeling up for anything in the world.

--

A/N: Another chapter done, and I'm trying to approach the action parts at a reasonable pace without using too many time-skips. Next chapter will contain one as I detest stories that spend 5+ chapters writing out Naruto's time in the Academy. As such, next chapter will summarize the events and include characterzations that I've yet to see in other fanfiction, though one will seem...weird to some, but it will be explained slowly throughout the story. Review alerts follow.

Momma Lici: In a nutshell (without overcomplicating it), the Naruto universe contains an infinite number of dimensions, some with minor changes (like if Naruto wasn't housing the Kyuubi but someone else), while some have significant changes (Madara defeating the Shodaime when they fought at the Valley Of The End). Whenever the perpetual balance of power is shifted significantly, and no short to mid term solution is available (like if Madara gained control over the person who was housing the Kyuubi as given in my first example), "demons" (more accurately, immortals who are considered "unfit" to live as immortal for a variety of reasons) are sent to the dimension in question and kill every mortal being. After which they lose all immortal status (as they willingly broke the iron-clad rule of not interfering with mortal affairs, even though they were forced to do so) and are forced to take mortal form until they die. But, as an aftereffect, they retain most of their abilities, and certain genetic traits (like say a better control over fire) are passed down in the form of bloodlines. It's a cut-and-dry form of the "Circle of life" theme, but given a few unique (or so I'd say) twists to keep it interesting.

To all others who reviewed; thank you for at acknowledging you read it, even if you had nothing noteworthy to say. Recieveing even a simple "thank you" helps me, really. )


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Took a little longer to get this chapter finished and ready for posting, but I managed somehow. As stated last chapter, this is focused more on establishing past (and present) relationships with certain characters, though not every character will be present in this chapter, nor will they play a large part in the story. It's subject to change in future chapters however, depending on what route the story takes. Don't expect a lot of action until about chapter 5, when I hope to start delving into one section of the plot, though I expect chapter 5 will contain a twist or two very few will see coming. ;) Also, as usual, be critical if you wish, even if it's pointing out a spelling mistake me and my beta somehow missed. Review responses at the end, as per usual.

Summary of the last chapter; Naruto enters a sort of seclusion/isolation to turn back the clock and enter another dimension close to being destroyed, to return a debt he owes to an immortal commonly referred to as 'Shinigami' by mortals. Upon emerging from isolation, he reacquaints himself with a number of old friends while secretly training for the day where he will destroy the Akatsuki before they can bring about the destruction of the world. He also has a meeting of chance with his biological father, Namikaze Minato, but does not see him as a father, but as simply another person and the Hokage.

--

It seemed like it had been just yesterday that Naruto awoke from four years of isolation, but as he sat in Mizuki's classroom waiting for for his name to be called for the graduation test, he realized that starting tomorrow he'd be able to put his plan against the Akatsuki into action. At first he thought he would be bored to tears daily during his classes but he found that if he used a simple _Kage Bunshin_, Mizuki would never know the difference, giving the boy ample time to train his body and perfect his techniques.

As he heard his name called and walked down to the other room where the testing was being held, he began to think back on the last four years. All the people he'd met, all the friends he made, all that he had accomplished, however small the achievement. Like last year, when he intervened on a dangerous prank that Konohamaru was trying to pull on an unsuspecting restraunt manager who had turned the boy away because he didn't have money for food. Sure, it had earned a stern detention from Mizuki for skipping out on class, but he felt he had gotten through to the kid, before he became an unfocused ninja much like himself the first time around.

Such an act of compassion didn't go unnoticed in the eyes of the ninja populace, as he received and unexpected visit from the former Hokage Sarutobi and a puffy-eyed Konohamaru, who half-heartedly apologized after a serious look from the kids grandpa. He even received a scroll of basic Genin-level techniques from the boys still-perverted tutor, Ebisu.

He distantly heard Mizuki ask him to produce three clones with _Bunshin no jutsu_ which he did while his mind was still reminiscing; producing them with practiced ease and even managed to copy his clothing and look down to the last scar and imperfection in the fabric in his clothing. Shocked at such an ease the brunette achieved such a feat, Mizuki then asked him to toss three shuriken at a target marked on the distant wall, but he could take his time.

Unconsciously he tossed them whimsically, while his mind drifted to a rather recent training session that affected him deeply for some reason.

--

**Flashback**

A month ago, he wandered into his unofficial training area in the forest, only to detect something...off in the air. Using a technique he developed called _Supersonic_, he let off a small burst of chakra, feeling it collide with each individual object in a ten yard radius; giving him a picture of the forest clearing, complete with trees, rocks, and a blonde that was most definitely **not** supposed to be there.

"What are you doing here Ino?" he asked in a clipped tone, not liking the idea of her finding his hiding spot. It was bad enough that she was able to read his mind, and even worse that she was stalking him now.

"I'm not stalking you, Naruto," ignoring the question, the blonde jumped down from a tree behind Naruto, landing softly on the grass and pushing a strand of her light-blonde hair out of her face. At first he was nervous about being in her presence after he learned of her telepathic abilities, but she assured him that she never told others what she found in another persons mind. Unless she was doing it for a mission, then she was happy to divulge such information.

"If you're not stalking me, then what the hell are you doing here?" he reiterated the question, hoping to get to the bottom of the situation at hand as painlessly as possible. While Yamanaka Ino was a very level-headed person, she seemed to take a rude attitude when dealing with Naruto, for a reason unknown to all but Ino. She also seemed to enjoy putting the boy through hell when talking to him, usually avoiding his questions with her own, until he pulled at his hair in frustration.

It was childish coming from the time-traveler, but he never had a thick-skin when dealing with girls. Power-hungry, demon-controlling, psychopathic ninjas? Yes. Harmless teenage girls? Hell no.

"The real question is why **your** here. Not me. I'm just a harmless, little girl who reads minds and can toss you across the room with a wave of my hand," she said sweetly, fluttering her eyelashes at the boy though he felt repulsed at such an act of over-dramatization. Made him seriously consider wringing her neck though she'd probably see it coming before he got close enough.

"I'm training. You know, the thing you do to get better at whatever it is you do? But then you wouldn't know anything about that, would you? You just rifle through peoples heads and pick out what it is **you** want to learn, and instantly **you** can do it, at the expense of the hard training the other person went through to earn it. You're just a common thief that will never amount to **anything**," feeling satisfied with himself, he smiled internally with glee, barely recognizing that the girl had launched herself at him in a fury, trying to gouge his eyes out.

It wasn't meant to be though, as he side-stepped her attack easily and tripped her with an out-stretched foot. Watching as she landed unceremoniously on the hard ground and unhappy with being pinned down with his foot. No matter how hard she struggled to try and move his foot off her back, as it was apparent she couldn't throw him with being able to see him, it remained there, as solid as concrete and just as hard to move too.

"Don't bother struggling Ino, you **won't** break free," he scolded her as she tried to dig herself out from under his foot, earning a sigh from the boy, "You don't learn do you? Every few months you show up in **my** training spot, and talk down to me. Then I spew some lame and stupid comeback which **you** take serious offense to and try to tackle me. After that fails, you struggle to escape from me but it never succeeds. Course, I fall into the same damn pattern time again as I rehash the same damn speech about what happened the last time you showed. And frankly, it's getting really old really quick. I could spend my time training and becoming better, and I know you could as well. God knows how atrocious you are at Taijutsu. Can't even land a blow on Sakura for god's sake! Really embarrassing, considering how she can't even avoid a shuriken from ten feet away," Ino stopped struggling to escape after the first minute of him talking, realizing he was right about attacking him every time he pointed out a flaw in her.

She had to admit she did the same thing, except he wouldn't attack her if she pushed him too far, he would just run and take it out on the trees in his training area. At first she thought he was scared of her, as most guys were, but she realized after watching him trounce Sasuke in a mock-spar he was fleeing because no matter how angry he got at her, he wouldn't strike her. Unless of course, she attacked first or it was a serious fight, which this obviously wasn't. Sighing she pushed herself off the ground, dusting the dirt, rocks, and grass that stuck to her shirt as she sat at the base of the nearest tree.

Ignoring her, as she always did that after he was done lecturing her, Naruto approached a tree away from her, and started to vent frustrations using his fists. Falling into a trance-like state slowly as he tried to toughen up his skin and pain-resistance, then switching to trying to break the tree using a chakra-molding technique he created. It involved molding the chakra in his fist and expelling it violently upon contact with a solid object, such as a person or a tree. The desired effect would effectively disrupt their chakra flow, preventing a clone from dispersing, or causing the tree to crack and break into pieces.

Hours passed as the blonde and brunette focused on their tasks, Ino on figuring out how to improve her fighting and other ninjas skills, while Naruto trained his body to be prepared to engage the Akatsuki. Ino, as per usual, was the first to break the silence that overtook the clearing as the sun started to set.

"Why do you do it Naruto?" It caused him to pause in his training, as he wondered what it was she meant by that. "I mean, why do you put up with me? I give you so much guff and piss you off constantly, so why do you still talk to me and let me hang around?"

Walking away from the fourth tree he had demolished in his training, he sat across the blonde, who stared at the forest floor blankly, drawing ineligible figures in the dirt absentmindedly. "Why shouldn't I Ino? Sure, you piss me off a lot, but you never do anything horrible enough to make me stop being your friend," Ino scoffed at the word 'friend', though Naruto didn't make mention of it. It wasn't rare for the girl to display emotion during class, and outside of it, but it seemed with Naruto that he brought out the more vivid emotions out. Like hatred, sympathy, pity. The things Naruto had grown up with, and gotten used to growing up as the bearer of Kyuubi.

"I'd hardly call us 'friends', Naruto. Friends aren't at each others throats whenever the other mentions something they don't like. Friends don't vow to gut each other, and actually **mean** it. Friends don't...friends don't do a lot of the things we do Naruto," she sighed sadly. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate the boy for what he did to her, and **for** her, it just...was complicated. All her life she had grown up with other people in her head, and she was fine with it until she met him; cliched as it sounded, she was a quiet girl, the one everyone talked about but never talked to. Then she met him not two years ago, and it seemed to go to hell in a hand-basket, as things started to go from bad to worse for her.

Her parents grew more worried for her and her advanced bloodline, though it was understandable as three year olds don't learn to read minds and throw things across the room when they didn't get to sleep with their teddy bear. Her abilities were shocking to her clan, but they took in stride and were proud of her abilities, as proud as she was of them. It was just hard for her to go to school day after day, knowing the answers before the questions, knowing the teachers thoughts about their students, of her, and knowing the dark secrets of her classmates, however silly or serious they might be. She was surprised time and again that she hadn't ended up in a psychiatric hospital from a nervous breakdown with all the mental torture she'd been unwillingly inflicted with.

"Quit the pity-party Ino, you're starting to make me depressed, which is **never** a good thing, I assure you that," Naruto tried to rain on her parade, though that comment seemed to only incense the girl even more.

"Why the hell should I do what **you** say? You're not my father, so don't try to tell me what to do! I mean, it's not like **you** can read the mind of everyone within a twenty foot radius **without** control over it. You can't even take criticism from a girl for crying out loud! Where do you get off telling me what I should do? You don't even **know** me!" she snapped, laying into the brunette who tried to control the emotions that threatened to boil over. She didn't deserve his shouting, not with what she suffered on a daily basis, especially since he knew she was a good person under the tough exterior. A little messed up emotionally, but a good person nonetheless.

"Where do I get off telling you what to do? That's a joke right? **You** brought this upon yourself, when you decided stalk me to my training spot. When you decided it would be fun to question **why I'm here** and took offense when I explained why and told you the exact reason why **you** were here, to steal what I was doing and use it to your own devices. **You** were the one to attack me, and the one who sat at the base of a tree for five hours and just stare at dirt, instead of getting up off your ass and doing something about fixing your shortcomings. You know I'm here **every damn day of the week**, to better myself and push beyond my limits, but yet you **don't life a damned finger** to ask for help. I'd be more than willing to help you Ino, and **you know it**. You're just too damned stubborn for your own good most of the damned time," Naruto shot back, focusing his anger on certain points of his speech while she glared at him fiercely. Not to be showed-up, Naruto glared at her, holding an unspoken glare-contest and wondering who would let up, or blink, first. It was Ino who blinked first, causing him to celebrate internally as the girl let another sad sigh escape her lips.

"I...I don't get it Naruto. I really don't. Why do we constantly fight like this? I mean, what did we ever do to each other to end up at each others throats whenever one says something the other doesn't like? Did we piss off some god or something in an obscure past life? Or is this a gods idea of a sick joke," she asked him in a serious tone, though she didn't expect him to answer. He never did when they fought like this, however rare it was.

"I don't know Ino. I just...don't know. Maybe we **did** piss off some god, or it **is** a practical joke by one of them. Or maybe we just know how to push each others buttons, to push each other to their limits and beyond," he answered solemnly, earning a strange glance from the blonde girl.

"When did you become Mr. Mature And Serious?" she asked him inquisitively, having never seen the Jinchuuriki be so serious and mature before today.

Naruto shrugged, not sure how to take the question, "I've been this way for a while Ino, I just don't show it to you often because we're at each others throats. If you spent less time on fighting with me and more time on actually **talking** to me you'd see I'm not that much different from you."

Ino snorted but didn't reply, which meant she was thinking about what he had said over the course of the afternoon. Whether or not she took his words to heart however, remained to be seen, but he had a feeling she would for once. Without another word she stood up and walked away from Naruto, not wishing to worry her parents more than she already had by staying out until it was dark.

**End Flashback**

--

The memory drifted from the front of his mind as he regained focus on the present, zoning in on the final test for graduation, using _Henge_ to transform into the instructor. Focusing a small amount of chakra on the seals, Naruto successfully transformed into Mizuki, though he knew he was able to. _Henge_ was something he'd perfected over the years with Jiraiya, though he didn't use it much against the Akatsuki. And since a number of their members were able to see through a _Henge_, it was useless to use to sneak up on them.

Ignoring the shocked look on Mizuki's face as he noticed he got every detail down, he dispelled the _Henge_ and walked out of the testing room, taking his spot next to Sasuke, who looked a little nervous about the results of his test but remembered Naruto telling him not to worry about it days before.

"_Don't worry about it Sasuke, you've got more brains than most of our classmates so I know for a fact you'll pass. And if you don't I'll convince Mizuki-sensei to let you pass,"_ at first Sasuke was skeptical but seeing the cheery grin on the blonds face, he relaxed slightly, realizing he was worrying over nothing. Pass or fail he was going to see it through, and not worry about petty things like "graduate student" on his path to save his brother. It seemed like the sort of thing Itachi would tell him, if he could see Sasuke now.

After the last student had finished their test, Mizuki dismissed them for an "extended lunch" while he contacted the teacher Jounin's that would lead and train them for the next few years, which they begrudgingly accepted, most wanting to know whether or not they passed. The lunch hour, though in reality it was two hours long, passed with relative dullness, as no one wanted to do anything as they figured Mizuki would tell them to get back into the classroom to receive their team and teacher Jounin.

The two hours passed quickly however, much to the joy of the pre-teens, and they soon found themselves chattering in their classroom of four years, the voices dying down as Mizuki called for their attention as he introduced each Jounin. Of the dozen or two Jounins, Naruto recognized only a couple.

Kurenai it seemed was still a Jounin, which he was happy for. She was a good person, and he enjoyed her company while she was alive, even if most of the time they spent together was when she had to go to her monthly hospital visits to check on the health of her son, both before and after his birth. It didn't bother Naruto however, he was just happy to spend time with her, before her untimely death. Her and her son's death had hit him hard, as she had retired only a few months after her sons birth, and were simple civilians hoping to live in relative peace, but Madara prevented that from happening as he later realized.

Asuma was another Jounin teacher, still smoking and casting discreet glances towards the red-eyed kunoichi, though she pretended to not notice them. Naruto noticed that a familiar, lazy, silver-haired Jounin was missing, but ignored it as he was always late, no exceptions. In his place was someone Naruto almost jumped at, upon seeing. She was definitely the least-likely Konoha ninja he expected to see, let alone as a Jounin teacher.

The blue-haired Konan was one of the few ninjas he felt odd around, when she was alive. Mostly due to the fact she knew his father growing up, and she was once a vital member of the Akatsuki, though she confessed to him later that Jiraiya helped her reform into a Konoha ninja. It was too little, too late however, as Madara killed her when he attacked Konoha, but not before telling him that if not for his mother, Uzumaki Kushina, she would have married his father.

While he never truly considered her an enemy of his friends, as he truly believed she had reformed and was fighting for his side, he kept her at arms length, which she appraised him on. _"Never truly trust a reformed ninja, Naruto. Because you never know when they're faking, and when they're sincere. Despite what they may say, what they may do, they broke the number one rule of being a ninja; never give in to your enemy, hidden or not."_ When asked about whether or not she was sincere in her defection from Akatsuki, she told him to not worry about it. _"I can't undo the past Naruto. I wish I could though. I wish I could turn back the clock and prevent my fool-hearted younger self from following Pein, but I can't. Maybe if I had stayed in Konoha, your mother be damned, we wouldn't be in such a situation, maybe we could have stemmed the hatred you got from the civilians for being the Kyuubi's carrier. Or maybe we could have prevented the whole fiasco all-together."_

Distantly he heard Mizuki call out the teams, their members, and the Jounins, but he didn't pay attention to it, instead studying the woman, entranced by her mere presence. It seemed that the other male students were studying her as well, before he realized it was an advanced Genjutsu, and dispelled it silently, not noticing Konan and the other Jounin looked up at him when he did so. While initially a prank that would have been preformed by Kurenai, Konan decided to pull it off instead. The initial plan was to let it sit for a minute or two, while the students would stare, but it was disrupted by the brunette Mizuki seemed to go on and on about, claiming he was the "next Kakashi" with how he acted in class.

At first skeptical, they realized after watching him participate in a few of his classes that Mizuki was telling the truth; the brown-haired boy was far beyond the level of his peers, but why he neglected to jump ahead in his studies was beyond them. There would be a blood-bath between some of the stronger Jounins to make him their apprentice, as it was once in a few generations that such a prodigy emerged amongst the general masses. Sure there was always a prodigy in each generation, but they usually stemmed from one of the major clans and was often overlooked when it came time for picking the next Hokage. To make a name of oneself in the academy, and be from a relatively unknown family, was a rare commodity that people took notice of, no matter how much they didn't want to. This boy, Uzumaki Naruto, would be one to watch, that was for certain.

"Team 7, consisting Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Nara Shikamaru will be lead by Konan," Mizuki rambled off, catching Naruto's attention finally. It was surprising that he'd break up Shikamaru and Chouji, but he assumed it would be for the better. Maybe he could get the genius to train more, and help avert a number of crisis he encountered in the once-past. He ignored Mizuki's naming off the rest of the teams to catch the attention of his team-mates, noting Shikamaru's trademark eyerolling at being stuck with one of "the girls", but ignored it, focusing on the pink-haired girl he once had a crush on.

He stopped asking her out shortly after the death of Jiraiya, though she remained oblivious about it until Ino drunkenly told her that Naruto "had changed for the better" one night, and she seriously considered chasing him romantically, much to the chagrin of Sakura. She took Ino's backhanded advice to heart though, and confronted him about it, and he told her that he realized it was a foolish conquest, as he knew she would always pine for Sasuke and he was fine with it, even if he didn't agree with it. They had an awkward and strained relationship following the conversation, as she seemed miffed at the idea of him "giving up so easily", ignoring the fact that she would never date Naruto, but they managed to patch things up before she died in Madara's assault on Konoha. It had struck him deeply, as she was one of the few people he told the Kyuubi about, and his only regret was not telling everyone else about it. Even now he was torn on telling them or not, as he wasn't sure anyone would agree without showing the seal keeping him in place, but he felt he would find the answer to that question eventually.

Noticing that Sakura was ignoring all attempts Naruto employed to get her attention, he resigned himself with a dramatic sigh and leaned back in his seat as Konan called out that her team would meet out in the hallway, and to await further instructions there. Pulling himself from his seat, and bidding goodbye to Sasuke, he slowly walked out of the classroom where his other teammates waited impatiently, or at least Sakura was. Shikamaru had a look akin to "put me out of my misery already, I'm bored to near-tears", which Naruto ignored, as the boy always had that look on his face.

When they got out into the hallway they looked around in confusion, as their new sensei was nowhere to be seen, despite seeing her not thirty seconds earlier. While Sakura and Shikamaru wondered if she was fast, Naruto looked around for any indication of her whereabouts. It was obvious she had wandered through, from the way her smell drifted around the hallway, hinting that she had entered the hallway, but never left it, which made him look around for any obvious signs of a Genjutsu. Not seeing any, he noticed a piece of paper on the ground near the threshold between their classroom and the hallway, and picked it up. Shikamaru and Sakura had taken notice the brunette as he picked up a seemingly-innocent piece of paper, and proceeded to read it aloud.

"Go to training area 25, for more instructions," he muttered simply, scoffing at the audacity of the Jounin. While he knew where the training area was, he had a feeling it was a trap, or worse, a ploy used to fail them. Most Jounin sensei's would give their students a simple test that required usage of all skills they developed in the Academy, but there was the occasional Jounin that wanted to mess with the minds of their students, and make them 'think outside the box', as they put it. Konan was obviously no different, though it was hardly a surprise to the dimension-hopper.

"What do we do Naruto?" Sakura asked softly, eying the paper cautiously, as though she expected it to become mobile and attack her. It wasn't out of Konans skill range, or at least the Konan Naruto remembered, but he doubted she would do it against a pair of Genins. It meant something to the blonde that Sakura would question an order from a Jounin, especially an ally, as it meant she wouldn't be as useless in a team as she was the first time around. Or rather, she wouldn't be useless for three years, like the Sakura of his dimension.

"What do you think Shikamaru?" the brunette ignored her question, asking his friend instead. It wasn't that he didn't value her opinion, he just didn't know her that well, and by extension he didn't know her capabilities when it came to critical thought, while he knew Shikamaru's considerably well.

The brunette didn't answer for a minute, but judging from the frown on his face he was thinking. Finally, he answered, "She expects us to follow the instructions to the dot, but we don't even know if they're authentic. For all we know it's a trap to kill us, though I doubt it," as he finished Naruto caught a whiff of the familiar scent of Konan, freshly folded Origami and melons, giving him the impression the Genjutsu was designed as a test of faith.

"Then we won't go the training area, if she intends to kill us, or send us on a wild goose chase," Naruto announced, a bit loud for dramatic reasons, but it achieved the desired goal.

"Very good boy, though it took longer for you to crack the meaning than I had hoped. Just goes to show you can still be humbled against someone as pretty and beautiful as me, no?" Konan pipped up from behind the group, scaring the three and causing Sakura to jump in fright. It was clear it was just a dramatized event, as Konan tried hard to not laugh at the three's pitiful expressions. "Rooftop, five minutes. Be there, as this is the real deal," she said, disappeaing in a flurry of leaves, much to the awe of Sakura and Shikamaru. They didn't say anything to each other, as they ascended the stairs to the roof, nor did they say anything when they got to the roof and watched as Konan was creating Origami as they sat patiently in silence, never disturbing her as she worked.

After five minutes she placed the finished Origami inside her hip-pocket, her students sitting up in attention at the change in actions. "You've learned the subtle art of observation and patience, both great traits for being a successful ninja. If not for them, I have no doubt I would be dead, many times over. The fact you three have mastered it is proof that future generations of ninja aren't as doomed as I initially thought. I'm going to be truthful with you three, I expect great things from you, you were chosen to be placed on my team otherwise I wouldn't have bothered volunteering to take a team this year. To be honest, I considered retiring last year, as I haven't had a real challenge in years and I feel like settling down. But, I decided not to at the last moment, and it seems my intuition will pay off, if I have anything to say about it. My name is Konan, what are yours?"

"Nara Shikamaru."

"Haruno Sakura."

"Uzumaki Naruto."

Nodding approvingly, Konan continued, "Good. That test earlier was to see if you were willing to work together and solve a simple word problem. The fact you were able to deduce it speaks greatly, as very few Genin are able to pick up on it, and even a good number of Chuunin can't. However, be warned, should you become a Genin, I will not go easy on you. When I train you, I expect you to give it all, to reach your limits and tell your limits where they can shove it. You will be pushed harder than you would think humanly possible, but in the end, it will give you a purpose, whether it be a Jounin sensei like myself, or Hokage. You may hate me for the torture I put you through, but you will be grateful it in the end, and you may even see the significance for each training exercise."

"Excuse me, sensei, but what do you mean 'should you become a Genin'?" Sakura asked, voicing what the boys thought but wanted to see her ask.

"With each graduating team of Konoha academy students, they are given a simple task to determine whether or not they are fit to be a ninja. You three will be expected to meet back at the Academy tomorrow, at 9 AM sharp, to partake in your task. It is nothing lethal, but **will** push you to make difficult choices, which you will face in the field, far away from Konoha, and sometimes in your own backyard. I will not lie and say that it is a cakewalk, as there is always someone stronger than you, faster, smarter. But with each enemy, lies an ally in wait, who will put their lives on the line to assist you in reaching your ultimate goal, your destiny. And in exchange for helping you, they will expect you to help them, and you will, because it is only fair, and the right thing to do. So go home, you are dismissed for today. Prepare for your task however way you will. After tomorrow, if you are successful, you will be proud ninjas of Konoha, and there is no greater honor than that."

--

A/N: Chapter 3 finished, and so far it's one of my favorite chapters I've written. Chapter 4 will pick up right after chapter 3, and will contain more character building as well as a small action scene. If you're waiting for epic ninja battles that drag on for ten minutes or more, don't expect that for a good while (picture Chuunin exams and such), though there won't be a lot of those battles. Most fights will be quick, relying mostly on reflexes and luck, as opposed to stamina and pure power, but it is mostly dictated by the persons fighting style ;) Now for review responses.

Momma Lici: I just grabbed the first color that came to mind, honestly. Though I can't count the number of times I wrote Naruto as being 'blonde' in this chapter, which made me go over each sentence carefully but I still wrote it as 'blonde' a couple of times afterwards. (

Hiroshima Namikaze: The proper term, would be more like 'rookie seven', but no, he won't befriend everyone. While he befriended five of the people in their class, he'll mostly hang out (using the term loosely) with three of them and two of them are on his team. I tried to write this with a Naruto not skirting training to hang out with his friends, as it'd be boring to write the story with Naruto mostly bonding as opposed to doing missions and getting strong enough to take on the Akatsuki.

Toki Mirage: His interactions with the Hokage will never cross the line into 'friends'. While he will interact with him (a couple scenes are planned for them to interact in the future), it will mostly be on a professional level. There might be one or two instances where it's not professional, but as I stated earlier, they won't become friends. The Hokage is nearing his fourties, which I would see as the prime age for "retirement" for ninjas, and it'd honestly be creepy for them to hang out, though something might come up that'll make me retract that statement.

To everyone else who reviewed; thanks. I truly appreciate it, as it at least tells me people are reading it. Now I'm off to continue slaving away on the stories next chapter, as my beta demands it. :P


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Decided to post this chapter ahead of schedule (was gonna post it Monday but decided to do it early), and it's one of my favorite chapters to write so far. A small action scene, before delving into some character development I initially had planned for the next chapter, but decided to put it in here to help fill up space and increase word count. The action scene isn't super-fancy, but helps paint a picture of what some of the more intense fights will look like in future chapters, but do give critiques on it, I like hearing opinions.As usual, review responses at the bottom and plot summary following this AN.

Plot summary: After arriving in an untouched Konoha, Naruto starts his mission off by engaging in his favorite pasttime; studying in the Ninja Academy. Following his required 4-year training, he's placed in a team with the timid Sakura and still-lazy Shikamaru, with his sensei being none other than the former-Akatsuki member Konan. After introductions and finding out their not officially Genin they are prepared for their true test the next day, all three hoping the test isn't too tough so they can officially begin their ninja career.

--

Naruto leaned against the outside wall of the Academy, idly wondering when his future-teammates were going to show up. He'd been up all night, excited and nervous for no particular reason, and as such couldn't wait to test himself and his team against the final test to become a Genin. While not arrogant or egotistical about his abilities, he felt he'd been holding himself back the last few years in the Academy, choosing to stay with his friends as opposed to jumping ahead and raising through the ranks faster. Initially he'd done it so he could get an idea of what his friends and allies were capable of, but he realized he was just making up excuses to go through his Academy years to pass what he initially put off the first time around, deeming it "a waste of time".

Now though, he realized what a large mistake he had made, possibly stunting the growth of potential allies simply because he couldn't bother teaching them how to use more advanced chakra molding and training techniques, techniques that would have given them a push in the right direction. Vowing to make up for the unintentional mistake, he planned what he'd teach his teammates at the first chance, though he was unsure of what they were capable of. Maybe the final test to becoming a Genin was the key to figuring our their potential, and through it, the map to training them to help him destroy the Hidden Sound and Akatsuki. Watching Shikamaru and Sakura enter his field of vision, which he had enhanced with a few subtle tweaks in the chakra coils within his eyes, he walked towards them, to meet them and get the day on with.

"Ready to become graduate and become Genin?" Naruto asked cheekily, noting their tired expressions. It seemed that they weren't the only ones up all night long, worrying about failing and staying another year in the Academy, as Naruto spotted the other teams had all members on the brink of exhaustion from the lack of sleep though it didn't phase the dimension-hopper. He'd faced tougher enemies in his time, even a Sakura turning down his request for a second date, and he was confident he and his team would be able to emerge victorious from whatever task was given to them.

Sakura simply glared at the brunette's cheerful demeanor, as though his career wasn't riding on the line, while Shikamaru ignored him, though he didn't feel putout by their attitudes. He knew they would no doubt be stressed out by the task, and no attempts at cheering them up would work.

"Ah, good to see you had the grace to show up," Konan called out to three as they entered the courtyard of the Academy, where younger students and the school teachers sat on the sidelines of a crudely-designed fighting area, watching intently.

"Sensei? What's the task we're supposed to preform?" Sakura asked timidly, though Naruto had a sinking feeling what her answer was going to be.

"Oh it's not too hard, you just gotta fight off a Jounin for ten minutes, a cakewalk really," she stated flippantly, watching Sakura and Shikamaru's eyes widen in realization. Naruto's mood remained unchanged, besides letting a dark chuckle escape his lips, earning a raised elegant eyebrow from the older woman while his teammates looked at him strangely.

"Just a Jounin you say? I can't wait," he muttered with a slight grin on his face. In truth he was looking forward to the mock-fight. Even if they judges expected each team to fail, which was obvious as it took a squad of Chuunin to take on a single Jounin, he wanted to stretch his muscles and see how he fared against other Jounin of Konoha.

"Despite all the claims of your teachers, I doubt you'll last no more than a minute against him, boy," Konan told him coolly, hoping to make him doubt himself, or get him to overestimate his abilities.

"Five minutes, I'm thinking," Naruto shot back without a thought, earning another raised eyebrow from the Jounin.

"Three."

"Four."

"Three and a half. No more, no less."

"Wanna make a bet out of it?" Naruto propositioned suddenly, confusing his two allies. They knew he was strong, the strongest in their class, but no one could take on a Jounin straight out of the Academy...right?

"How much?" Konan asked simply.

"Doesn't have to be money," he told her just as simply.

"Okay then, what do you want to bet?"

"What do you have?" He eyed her curiously, while she thought about the question carefully.

"What do you want?" She narrowed her eyes dangerously, taunting him silently to name something...devious that he wanted from winning the bet. While not above using her body to get what she wanted, and needed, for missions, she drew the line at using it for bets. She had some decency, unlike a certain snake-wielding Jounin she knew...

"You're too old for me to want that, grandma," Naruto jabbed, watching her visibly flinch. It was a well-known fact that while she was a reliable woman, Konan was incredibly vain about her looks, even to the extent of violently torturing her enemies if they made a bad mention of her look, which made her a deadly enemy. However, she didn't pull any punches towards any allies who made light of her looks, as Naruto had noticed many times in the past when a foolish Chuunin had misspoken and emerged with many superficial paper cuts that would make him choose his words carefully next time he was around her.

"Fine. You win, I'll teach you a few techniques you might find...interesting. However, if **I** win, you will admit that I am beautiful, whenever I speak to you," she snapped, agitated. She'd promised **not** to inflict great bodily harm on her charges, but by day two she was already close to breaking it. If not for the fact she knew the boy didn't personally know the Yondaime, she would have assumed Naruto had been paid to push her buttons.

"Okay," he accepted simply. Watching a group of leaves materialize in the yard and form into the very noticeable form of the Copy-Cat Ninja. Announcing simply that all teams had ten minutes to defeat him, at the same time, he gave them ten seconds to register before knocking out two teams to get the rest moving.

Sakura looked terrified at the ease the older man used to defeat the two teams though she calmed down after realizing it was simply an illusion; Kakashi hadn't moved from his spot and instead had his hands in his pockets while lazily watching the terrified children run around like chickens with their heads cut off.

"What do we do?" She asked, noticeably less timid than the day before.

"We let his illusion run it's course, sort out those who are unfit to continue as ninja," it was a rather blunt, and shocking, statement coming from Shikamaru, who watched the scene carefully. He had tried to disable the man using one of his subtle shadow-techniques but it failed, leading him to believe it was a clone standing there, and not the real thing.

"Good deduction," the Jounins voice called from behind them, forcing the two preteens to turn and face an incoming punch aimed at Sakura. It was blocked at the last second by Naruto however, who reared back and punched him though it had no visible effect. "Hn, you're not as strong as you're teachers made me believe, boy. Probably got by using illusions," Kakashi said, more to himself than to Naruto. The brunette simply smirked however.

"One thing you'll learn about me, old man, is that underestimating my abilities will always lead to a very humiliating death," he said as the Naruto clone disappeared in a puff of smoke, earning a raised eyebrow from Jounin as he scanned the area for his chakra signature.

"Lets see... He's not to the south, east, north, or west. Nor is he below me. Which means he's above me," he trailed off, looking up and expecting to see the brunette falling towards him, in an attempt of a surprise attack from above. When he didn't see him he took more time in reassessing his location and the people in it. The Academy students were watching in shock and awe at the ease the Genin were being decimated by a simple illusion, though they thought it to be real, while the teachers all looked and acted normal. He ruled out the Jounins on the simple idea that even a prodigy wouldn't be able to subdue a Jounin in record time and be able to emulate their mannerisms perfectly. Which left... "His teammates."

"Heh, took ya long enough. You got Alzheimer's or something? Would have thought a Jounin of your caliber would have been able to figure it out without a second glance. Guess I overestimated your abilities a little," 'Sakura' taunted slightly, dropping the Henge to reveal it was Naruto, or at least a clone of him. Kakashi was curious as to where, and how, the boy learned the Forbidden technique, but he didn't let it worry him. Not as much as how he was able to play Kakashi so much anyways, even if it was simply a clone as well.

"Don't bother looking for 'em, they're hidden well, so we can fight without any pressing distractions," Naruto, or a clone, called from behind him as Kakashi lazily turned to face the brunette. He was getting closer and closer to using the Sharingan out of irritation and annoyance, as it was supposed to be a simple show of force, to judge who could keep the illusion off the longest before succumbing to it. But this boy here, he seemed completely unaffected by it, which put the older Shinobi on his guard. While a simple B-ranked Genjutsu, it was very effective for subduing Chuunin and below, and was one of Kurenai's trademarked techniques. For a boy right out of the Academy to dispel it for himself was disconcerting as the older man had never seen it dispelled before, without assistance from a Sharingan.

Sighing softly to himself, the man put his kunai back into his pouch and withdrew his fathers legendary Fang, the curved metal glistening in the young sun as Naruto stared at it in wonder. He waited for the brunette to take up a weapon, though it appeared the brunette wanted to fight him without one.

"Heh, so you're pulling that out so soon? I should feel honored, but then I doubt you feel honored to fight me. No, you probably feel apprehension because I'm a mere Academy student, well a prodigy but still, who's able to stand up against you and your silly illusion. You're probably expecting me to pull out an even larger weapon, to put emphasis on a tired-and-true cliché about dicks, men, and weapons. I'm afraid I'll to disappoint you though," Naruto trailed off as he knelt down and scooped some dirt up, molding it into a ball as he focused chakra into it. When he was done he held his hands flat as the ball started to float slightly, earning another raised eyebrow from the Jounin, while Naruto fetched a kunai and used it to stab the ball, watching with a grin as the dirt wound itself tightly around the metal object, creating a makeshift katana four feet in length. It wasn't his best creation, he once made one about twelve feet long but was done on a dare from Konan, but was more sturdy against the lightning-infused Fang.

Due entirely to his experience in fighting the man, he managed to avoid the first three strikes from his Fang, deftly shorting out the additional charges of lightning to prevent a nasty surprise from the devious ninja. Before the destruction of Konoha, but after he'd been forced to kill Sasuke, he fought and trained with the man a number of times, eventually seeing him as a good friend and mentor who could replace Jiraiya, if he ever stopped reading those trashy books. Another two blows were blocked, though noticeably slower as he realized his concentration was waning in the fight.

'Focus dammit, you can think about the past later, after you kick his ass and win your bet with Konan,' he reprimanded himself mentally as he blocked the next blow and made a seemingly fatal mistake, he reacted slower in blocking the following lightning charge. As it made contact with his exposed neck, Naruto fought hard not to grin, waiting to see the reaction it'd garner from the man when it was revealed to be a clone made out of mud. Turning swiftly block the incoming attack, Kakashi was caught unaware by the mud clone which had buried it's own dirt-sword in his lower back, causing him to drop his Fang in defeat. Or so the crowd would think, as lightning erupted from the blade when he clattered onto the ground, destroying the two clones and having him look at the sky in expectancy of Naruto's counter-attack.

It was on time, as the Jounin lazily blocked a few slow punch and kicks, forcing a kick away from his hair, though Naruto threw a kunai to get past his guard. Blocking the kunai with the back of his left glove, Naruto formed a few quick seals, slamming his hands on the hard dirt and yelling a few simple words.

"_Maiden of the Earth!_", on his command several pillars made out of earth and rock shot from the ground, encasing the Jounin who noticed the pillars were as sharp as kunai from his nicked thumb, as well as more solid judging from the sheared kunai he had tested with.

"Impressive. Did you think it up yourself or did you steal it from someone?" he asked inquisitively.

"Heh, made it myself. Though I drew inspiration on seeing someone hide kunai in fireballs once. Was ingenious really," Naruto admitted proudly, wondering if the match was over. It looked as though, as Kakashi clearly had enough time to escape the prison before he even finished his seals, but who knew if he planned on one-upping the brunette.

"I concede this fight. You win, Uzumaki Naruto," Kakashi uttered simply, clearly reading the boys mind as he hurriedly dismissed the cage of stone, rock, and blades and took a small breather. The technique didn't drain any chakra from him, but he felt if he put on a show for the kids and others, it'd seem more believable that he managed to best the Jounin even though he really didn't. Kakashi was far beyond his skill, even with all his aces and trump cards, as he had more experience under his belt than Naruto ever hoped he could achieve. He wondered internally if the older man had listened in on his 'bet' with Konan and decided to draw it out so he'd win, but dismissed it on the grounds that it didn't matter whether he did or not. Regardless of whether or not he won the bet, he would have accepted the outcome and honor the terms, even if Konan didn't expect him to. It was his _nindo_ after all, to honor the terms no matter how dirty.

Finding the unconscious forms of his teammates, who had fallen prey to Jounins illusion after thirty seconds of it being active, he dusted himself off and waited for Kakashi to announce the teams who would officially become Genin, and be eligible for missions, even if they were D-rank. Upon hearing that his team, along with Ino's, had passed the test 'to experience the feeling of fighting an enemy beyond your fighting skill' Naruto burst into a grin. Though he knew his team was going to pass, it was still satisfying the second time around to hear it, and judging from the looks of shock on his teammates, he knew he was right in staying in the same classes as his old friends. There was just too many variables to take into account if he were to jump ahead a year or three and he wasn't going to risk ruining the time-line too much, even if jumping ahead would bring the end of Akatsuki faster.

"Hn, you didn't do too bad brat. Lasted longer than I gave you credit for, but don't let it go to your head. If Kakashi wasn't holding back he would have kicked your ass so fast it wouldn't have been funny. Or pretty, for that matter," Konan praised the boy, walking away the trio as Sakura and Shikamaru stared at Naruto in confusion, wondering what they had missed while unconscious. The brunette sighed at his teacher, knowing she did that to avoid talking to them for the rest of the day. It was obvious losing the bet had dealt a significant blow to her pride and public image, which would take some time to repair, and that he would be feeling her indirect wrath for the next few weeks.

As uncomfortable as it would be however, he felt he was on the one to come out on top of the situation, as he conned her into promising to teach him a trick or two as a result of winning the bet. He just hoped that it wasn't anything 'designed to please the kunoichi of Konoha', as he still hadn't gotten over the mental images of a Tsunade without her Genjutsu enabled.

--

The next few days passed with relative boredom, aside from the fact that Konan seemed intent on ignoring their team that is. At first Naruto simply thought she was avoiding them since she wasn't prepared to train them, or expected them to pass the test Kakashi assigned days earlier. But as he thought about it more, he realized he barely knew this universe's Konan, even if he feelings for her remained what they were in his home universe before she was killed. The more time passed without an official meeting between the Genin and their Jounin sensei, the more Naruto planned, and on the fourth day without a meeting he put his plan into action.

It was a relatively painless process in getting Shikamaru out of bed and out of his house, all he had to mention was he could "teach him a thing or two about clouds" and the boy never moved faster than Naruto had ever seen him. Suffice to say it was a rather jolting ordeal, and made him wonder if Shikamaru only moved slow because he wanted to mess with peoples perceptions.

The second task, was a bit harder to achieve. Mostly due to Sakura being frightened at Naruto tapping on her window for five minutes straight and grinning like a lecherous old man, which earned an attempted assault from the pink-haired girl but he blocked it with ease. Telling her he was going to "train Shikamaru and wanted to know if you wanted to be trained too", and she told him she wished to, after a minute of silent thought. Jumping down from her parents roof, he leaned against a wall directly across the way from her house, and said he'd be waiting for her there. Ten minutes later a rather flustered-looking Sakura dashed from out of her house, hurriedly running a comb through her soaking-pink locks until Naruto told her to stop. Before she could protest the brunette held up his hand to silence her, which worked.

"Trust me, in about two hours your hair will be dirty again. And messed up beyond belief. A comb's not gonna fix that, no matter how much you argue it will," he stated, walking away from the pre-teen with his hands folded behind his head.

"But I look ugly when my hairs not straight," Sakura whined childishly, pouting for effect. Naruto turned his head slightly and looked at her through the corner of his eye.

"If you're looks matter so much to you then you should quit being a ninja and find some other non-hazardous career," he replied harshly, not stopping his pace while Sakura jogged to catch up with him, her comb forgotten in her hand.

"What about Konan-sensei then? She looks like she spends more time on her looks in a day than I do in a week!" She asked in an arguing tone.

"The difference between you and her, Sakura, is that she is one of the strongest Jounin in the village. And one of the most feared in the Shinobi world."

Sakura was silent for a few minutes as they traversed the empty marketplace of Konoha, hours before the major foot-traffic would begin. "Say, Naruto. How do you know so much about being a ninja?"

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow, wondering when the pink-haired girl was so...chatty. In the Academy she was one of the quietest girls in their classroom, never talking to anyone that wasn't Kiba or Ino. But now, it seemed like she had opened up, if only a small bit. It perplexed the boy, but he shrugged it off. So long as she had a drive to better herself, and help others, he didn't care what her personality was like.

"I read a lot of things. Books, manuals, mission logs, all that. Helps me figure out who to ask for help, and who to avoid in this village."

"Mission logs? But only the Hokage sees those!"

"Hardly. Outside of B-rank and higher missions, any civilian-class citizen can look at mission logs. To read B-ranked you must be a Chuunin, and A and S rank missions require you to be a Jounin. I simply read up on old missions Konan-sensei has done with her teammates and sensei, and made assumptions based off of what was contained in the mission log. And you can't tell me you're so blind to see her vanity, it's obvious from the way she talks and dresses that she holds her looks very highly," Naruto said in a condescending tone, quieting Sakura for the rest of the trip as they progressed towards the training areas. Upon arriving Naruto sat against a nearby tree, and indicated that Sakura do the same.

"What are we doing here Naruto? I thought you said we were going to do some training," she stated, clearly confused.

"We are. I'm just waiting for Shikamaru to get his lazy ass over here," Naruto replied, raising his voice so the shadow-manipulator could hear him, earning a sigh from the Nara and a slow grumbling from him as he walked over to the duo. "Right, now that you're both here, I'm going to start by laying down some rules."

"Rule number one; I'm going to push you beyond your limits. And you won't like it one bit, but you'll grow stronger by doing so, as well as be able to know what your limits are in battle. Rule number two; we start with the basics, and work our way up from there. Yes, I know we just spent four years learning the basics, but what I'm going to teach you about them **isn't** covered in the textbooks. And are far more effective to boot. Rule number three; until we get missions, we meet here everyday except Sundays at 6 A.M. Sharp. No excuses for being late, as I'll run you through something I call 'The Gauntlet'."

"What's 'The Gauntlet'?" Sakura perked up curiously.

"A one on one fight with me. And I won't hold back. Now don't interrupt me again. Rule number four; give every exercise we do your fullest. Don't hold back in any fight, as it could come back and bite you in the ass in the end. Understand?" at Sakura and Shikamaru's nod of acknowledgment his demeanor changed drastically.

"Right then. Now since you know the rules, we'll get into the training, starting with chakra and it's many uses. What can you tell me about chakra?" he asked, directing the question at both of them. They looked at each other in slight confusion before Sakura spoke up.

"It's the immaterial form of blood, vital to the life and existence to every living thing," she recited from memory.

"What is considered a 'living thing' then? In your own words, of course."

She looked slightly taken back by his question, but thought about it for a moment before answering, "Humans and animals."

"What about trees? Plants? Water? Would you consider those 'living'?"

"Er, no. No they're not."

Naruto turned to face Shikamaru directly, "Do you agree with her answer?"

He looked in thought for a minute, before nodding slowly, not understanding the meaning of his question. While he considered plants and such to be living beings, he wasn't able to wrap his mind around the concept of a tree or water having chakra, or not in any way that made sense to him that is.

"You're right, in a sense. And wrong in another. While you're right that most things aren't living when you compare them to humans and animals, they are technically living. However, plants, water, trees, and other creations do hold chakra, and have chakra coils, they're just less complex than a human or animals. But most of that is irrelevant, as it'll be a long while before you can hope to use rocks and such items in a fight," they looked confused at first, but as he explained it in detail they slowly began to wrap their mind around the concept, even if they were skeptical of it.

"Good. Now can you tell me what chakra can be used for?"

The rest of the day passed with Naruto lecturing them on various concepts covered in the Academy; the uses of _Bunshin no Jutsu_, _Kawarimi_, as well as the various affinities and what they represented in regards to personality. Fire indicated a temper, water hinted at a calm persona, earth foreshadowed patience beyond years, wind represented a free spirit and spontaneity and lighting voiced rashness. When asked how they could find out their element, Naruto withdrew two small pieces of paper from his weapon pouch, and told them to channel chakra into it, and it would indicate their affinity.

Shikamaru had an earth-affinity, which Naruto figured he would have. Sakura was surprisingly a lightning-affinity, which shocked the trio as most would have assumed she be a water-affinity, but it seemed they were wrong. The pink-haired girl seemed embarrassed at her affinity but Naruto assured her there was nothing wrong with being lightning-oriented, as quite a few powerful ninjas turned out to be lightning-oriented. While a half-lie, it seemed to raise the girls spirits considerably, prompting her to ask him when she'd get to learn techniques pertaining to her affinity.

"It'll be a bit before I teach you guys any kind of advanced technique, as a lot require chakra control and refinement beyond Genin-level. But that doesn't mean I won't teach you useful things, you just won't be learning affinity techniques for a while. To be honest you normally don't find out about affinities until your a Chuunin, but since you've found out what your affinity is you'll have more time to incorporate it into whatever techniques you want."

"What exactly are the limits on affinities Naruto?" Shikamaru asked curiously, interested in the prospect of mixing his shadow techniques with earth techniques.

"The limits are as much or little as you want them to be. You can start a fire by simply channeling chakra through your hand and touching a tree. You can asphyxiate an enemy with the right control. You can even force someone to drown by using the water in their body. Whatever you can dream up, your affinity, and chakra by proxy, can achieve it, given you have the right training and control."

"What's your affinity Naruto?" the boy questioned, unable to figure it out with his 'personality' lecture earlier. The brunette indicated water or earth, but he also had some wind-like qualities, and was eager to find out.

"Me? I'm an earth-affinity, like you Shika."

"What can you do with earth, exactly?"

Naruto smirked, eager to show off some of his skills to his friend, "I'll show ya!" he exclaimed as he scooped some dirt off the ground and molded it into a ball, similar to the one days earlier. As the ball started to however slightly, he with drew a kunai and stabbed it, mimicking his action earlier in the week but with a different goal in mind. Watching in awe as the dirt took on a life of it's own and snaked around the kunai, Shikamaru and Sakura were obviously stunned at the control Naruto had over his element, and even more so when the brunette threw the kunai-turned-katana at a tree and split it in a single blow. The duo were shocked for a minute, before looking at Naruto with a sense of reverence on their faces, clearly impressed by his show of force.

"Are...are we going to be able to do that Naruto? I mean, the adding our element to weapons," Shikamaru asked, slowly getting over the shock at the display of power. In truth Naruto could have made it pass through a few more trees without much effort, but didn't want to lead on how strong he was too faster.

"Yep. However I'm not sure exactly how all the elements do it. So you'd have to find someone who has a lightning-affinity Sakura, for the details on harnessing your element," the dimension-hopper explained, getting up off the ground to fetch his casually-discarded kunai, wiping the last remnants of dirt from the blade, walking back to his teammates while delving into the next topic on his mental list; teamwork. He felt it was something they needed to get mastered to an art, unless they wished for a shortened lifespan, he thought as he felt a pulse of chakra disappear about fifty yards to his right.

As he tried to focus on it, he felt the familiar residue left over from a clone dispelling itself, filling him with a sense of foreboding as someone was watching him and his team, but left no incriminating evidence. It would seem he'd need to keep a closer eye on what he taught his team, as well as put up clones to keep an eye on their lessons, as he wouldn't want to be giving information to someone with a vendetta against the Leaf.

--

A/N: Aaaaand chapter 4 is finished. Next chapter will begin the plot, slowly but surely, and after that some rather large bombshells will be dropped in subsequent chapters. And here are review responses.

Demonkid: Yeah, I'm aware not a lot is going on at the moment, as the plot doesn't start to develop until chapter 5/6, and after that chapters will focus on the plot for a bit before balancing both character development and plot.

Toki Mirage: In all honesty a flashback was the only way I would have been able to get that scene incorporated in this story. I didn't want to extend chapter two with the scene, or start off chapter three with it and then jump months ahead to their graduation, as I felt it would have been a rough tranisition.

To everyone else who reviewed: Thank you. Feedback is part of what makes me continue posting chapters, the other part is my beta. ;)


	5. Chapter 5

A/N:Yay, new chapter. Took a bit longer to finish up since my beta decided to drop off the radar for a week straight. But it gave me a reason to put off working on the chapter as well. :P Lots of character development in this chapter, with a couple of hints as to what's coming up in the next chapter. Review responses on the bottom, as usual.

Plot summary: Upon defeating Kakashi in a mock battle and graduating as a full-fledged Genin, Naruto is intially shunned by his teacher Konan and takes it upon himself to train his teammates. What is it that keeps Konan from teaching her pupils and what can be done to inspire her to teach them?

"What do you mean 'D-rank mission'?! That's all we've done since we became Genin! We should be out there and kicking ass instead of baby-sitting that hell spawn!" Naruto shouted in agitation, having finished his twentieth D-rank mission in a week. While they had only been Genin for a month, he felt they were progressing at too slow of a rate. He knew that their team was ready for a C-rank mission, what with him being as strong as he was, Konan, and the fact he helped train Sakura and Shikamaru when they wanted it, which was quite often he found. But he tried to put off advanced techniques and chakra training as long as he could due to the fact many of the techniques were known to Jiraiya, and himself, and could bring up unneeded questions if word slipped out that he knew them.

At the current moment however, he knew it would be a good while before they reached the sufficient level to learn some of the techniques, but it didn't ease his worries. He often felt he was being watched during his training sessions, though the person was gone whenever he noticed their chakra signature. It felt familiar to him, but meant nothing as he hadn't learned to notice and memorize chakra signatures until a few months before Konoha was destroyed. For all Naruto knew it was Gaara planning on assassinating him before the Chuunin exams, however unlikely it may be. Even sending in a clone seemed fruitless as the person disappeared before the clone could get within fifty feet of them, giving Naruto the impression they were using a clone to spy on him and dismissing it before they could give away any incriminating evidence as to their identity.

The technique of transferring information over clones was highly advanced, as it required a clone strong enough to sustain the process of having a seal placed on them on top of a powerful mind to process the sudden influx of knowledge. As such the seal and the technique to produce the clone were labeled as _Forbidden Technique_, due to the steep requirements for success, but even then it was never guaranteed to work. If one were to disrupt the flow of chakra from the seal to the creator, it could cause insurmountable damage to them, and had a high chance of fatally wounding the person, discerning villages from relying on such methods in gaining information. Sure, the information one could gain from using it far outweighed the cons, but it was only used when they knew information could be gleaned, otherwise they were running a huge risk of it blowing up in their face and causing another Great Shinobi War.

"Watch your tone brat. The Hokage gave you a mission and you will fulfill your duty of carrying it out, however petty it may be or insulting it may be to your meager skills," Konan retorted sharply, while Naruto simply glared at the blue-haired woman.

"Meager skills? Come on! I could kick your pedicured ass any day of the week!" Naruto snapped back while the Hokage watched on, fighting back the on-coming headache from the two. While he knew why Konan considered the brunette's skills to be "meager" judging from her retelling of Kakashi's little 'test' he had assigned. However, he didn't understand why she constantly considered him to be "sub-par" as he showed potential similar to Kakashi when he was younger, and that was his main reasoning behind assigning the brunette to her team, to help her realize his potential and start training him to become a vital asset to Konoha.

"You couldn't even break one my fingernails, boy. But if you're so eager to get put in your place, I'd be more than happy to do it," the Jounin said coolly, staring at the Genin with a tempered cool, silently egging him with her attitude. Naruto could see she wanted to put him in his place, and was tempted to rise to the chance. The Hokage however, had other plans.

"Enough, both of you. If you're going to fight, do it outside. I don't like getting blood on my carpet, and would like to keep it clean," the tension in the room eased up significantly at his statement, though Naruto still glared at Konan, wondering why she doubted his skills. Sure, he dodged the first three weeks of official Genin missions, but he made up for it by showing up the last week, on top of helping his teammates train to reach their potential. It was rather insulting to the boy that she would still consider his skills "meager" in light of his obvious show of force against Kakashi. While the techniques and skills he displayed were of his own design, it was obvious by the way he held the man at bay that he had great potential, or at least that's what he assumed.

"We have a mission to do brats, so lets get to it," Konan stated as she walked towards the exit of the Hokages office.

"Wait," the Hokages voiced called at the retreating backs of Team 7. As they turned to face their leader he rifled through a stack of mission requests, searching for one he had seen only an hour before the team showed up. Pulling it from the pile he scanned the details and requirements of the mission before signing off on it. "If you think you are strong and skilled enough to participate on a C-ranked mission, I am willing to let you take this one. Are you ready?"

"No, they're not, Hokage-sama," Konan answered automatically. While she secretly watched their training sessions, and was impressed at their growth, she felt they had at least another month of training to go until they were ready to tackle a C-ranked mission. It wasn't that she couldn't take on any significant problems that could pop up during the mission, but more of the fact she wished them to do the majority of the work, while she would overlook and ensure none of them suffered crippling injuries. She wanted them to know what it felt like to be in a team of equally-strong allies, to prepare them for when they eventually reached the rank of Chuunin.

"I wasn't asking you, Konan," he shot back smoothly. Konan glared at him coldly, wondering what it was that Naruto said that would make him change his mind. She knew he preferred to give his students the benefit of a doubt, but she didn't want them to turn to her for support when the going got tough. It was reminiscent of how Jiraiya taught her and Pein, all those years ago, to be strong enough to fend for yourself if it came down to it. "So, do you three think you are ready and willing to take on a C-ranked mission?"

Sakura and Shikamaru looked rather perplexed at the turn around the Hokage displayed, willing to give into Naruto's demand of a C-ranked mission because he felt they were ready for it. They looked at each other and then to Naruto who looked unaffected by the turn in judgment shown by the blonde and nodded their acknowledgment. The Hokage then directed his question at Naruto, asking a third time.

"What do you think? I'm the one who bugged you for a C-rank mission. Oh course I'm ready," Naruto stated obviously, earning a slight smirk from the blonde. The boy reminded him a bit of himself as a child, just a lot more headstrong.

"Very well. Your mission is rather atypical; a group of bandits have been terrorizing a small village to the south of Konoha. It should be nothing for you and your team, if you're as ready as you say you are. Konan will overlook the mission and only intervene when she has no other choice. You will be responsible for lodging, food, intelligence gathering, everything. Is that understood?" The Hokage explained simply. Naruto and his teammates nodded in acknowledgment, mentally preparing themselves for their first real mission.

"Very well, dismissed," the blonde said, handing the mission report to Konan who briefly scanned it before throwing to Naruto.

"Your mission, your plan," she stated simply, waiting for his first official order. She didn't like the idea of them being in charge of their very first mission, but would do as the Hokage instructed. If his faith in them were well-placed, then they would succeed with flying colors. If not, then she would rub it into Naruto's face and take him down a notch, which she felt he needed desperately.

Reading the mission report thoroughly, Naruto started to consider what they would need for the mission. Obviously it wouldn't be finished within a day, as it would take at least one day of steady walking to get to the town, and the villagers reported the bandits only attacked whenever they received goods from another town. The next shipment wouldn't be there for another four days, which Naruto estimated it gave them three days at the max to find their base of operations and shut it down.

"Gather supplies to last a week and meet me at the South Gate. We leave in two hours," Naruto ordered in an emotionless tone. The other two members nodded and left the Hokage tower in a brisk walk, while Naruto walked at a slower pace, mentally going over a checklist for the mission. It was a habit he picked up to prevent him doubting his ability to execute a mission either alone, or as team leader, and he found it to be successful a majority of the time. He wasn't going to lie and say he could finish a mission with perfect results, as he could never account for all possible variables. Nor could he judge a targets strength just by looking at them.

He knew he shouldn't have to worry about his friends, as he trained them hard the last week, but they hadn't shown truth growth during the training. He mostly taught them chakra training techniques and helped find out their strengths and specialties. Sakura was predictably a Medic-Nin, though she lacked the chakra refinement Tsunade had taught her in his home dimension, and instead showed a greater aptitude in a precise eye for hitting vital targets with scary accuracy. Shikamaru obviously showed potential in his usage of his clan techniques, but lacked the motivation to take initiative and create new techniques, or perfect the ones he already knew. But he showed promise, when Naruto told him that training his mind was only one part of being a successful ninja, the other part was training your body to work in perfect unity with his mind.

Naruto quickly quashed the thoughts of his team failing, as he knew anything thrown at them he could deal with personally, even if it meant showing a few cards in his hand sooner than he hoped. He had pledged after all, that he would protect his precious people no matter the cost, even if he had to release the Kyuubi he would, to ensure their safety. He just hoped it wouldn't come to that during this mission.

"Is your mission clear?" a deep booming voice asked the two teenagers in cloaks. They stared at the large rock with stoic expressions, betraying none of the emotions beneath their eyes.

"Yes, Pein-sama," one of the voices, an older teen, answered patiently while his partner simply stood and stared at the rock. Sunglasses obscured his eyes, though it was doubtful he had eyes judging from the number of bugs scurrying across his face.

"Remember, if he does not accept the offer, you are to dispose of him, for the safety of the organization. Not doing so will result in a severe punishment, is that clear?" Pein continued, rehashing the parameters for the mission a third time.

"Crystal, Pein-sama," the older teen responded, wishing the briefing was over with already. Having been with the group for five years, he knew most of the requirements by heart, and knew Pein was only doing it to ensure his young partner knew what would happen if he failed a mission, even if it was a training mission.

"Dismissed," Pein ordered, as the two left the large cavern and walked silently through the hallway of the Akatsuki base and emerged outside. The sun was halfway through the sky, indicating it was noon or thereabout, and the two took off in a brisk sprint in the direction of Konoha. It would take them a few days of steadying walking to reach their destination, but they weren't in a hurry. Their target was a missing-nin, one from Konoha to be exact. He would be offered a spot in the organization known as Akatsuki, and if he rejected the offer he would be killed without a second thought. Pein decreed that until further notice, no one must know that the organization known as Akatsuki existed, until 'it was deemed necessary to expose ourselves to the world', until then every contact that was no a consistent source of information would be killed afterwards.

Speeding slightly ahead of his partner, so as to not cause suspicion, the older teen began to wonder when he started to question the actions of Akatsuki. When he had initially joined the organization, he did so under coercion, to prevent his brother from being killed like the rest of his clan, and had lived with that decision for five long years. Now however, he began to wonder why he felt the urge to break away from the organization, even though he lacked the power and cunning to do so. As they continued their sprint from the mountains of Earth country, he began to wonder if he'd every be out from under the thumb of the Akatsuki, and plan for an eventual escape and defection.

Naruto stood impatiently at the south gate leading out of Konoha. He had told his team to meet him in two hours, and it was already going on three hours. While he knew they weren't going to pull a Kakashi on him, it began to grate his nerves. It was his first mission as a leader, in this dimension at least, and didn't want it ruined because his teammates weren't taking it seriously. He relented and calmed his temper however, knowing that they could have been caught up in packing for the trip and lost track of time. Or they could have simply gotten lost on their way to the gate, though he doubted it. Large as it may be, Konoha was not an easy town to get lost in, especially for those who lived in it. If one got lost, it was as simple as flagging down a passing-by Chuunin or Jounin, or going inside a shop and asking for directions.

As it neared even closer to three hours since he'd last seen his team, he spotted them in the distance, both carrying overly-bulging rucksacks, earning a raised eyebrow from the dimension-hopper. Even he knew that a large bag would slow him down, though it initially took a long lecture from Sakura, on his first mission. They looked more like they were going to go camping instead of kill bandits, earning a sigh from the boy.

"Please tell me I'm not going to have to explain to them that they can't take that shit with them," he muttered, more to him than his Jounin-teacher, who suppressed a slight smirk from the boys obvious nervousness.

"Afraid so brat," she informed him, standing slowly and dusting off the knees of her pale-blue kimono. Placing the finished pieces of Origami inside her kimono, she folded her arms in front of herself while watching the scene unfold.

"I thought I said to meet me here an hour ago?" Naruto asked in a clipped tone. He wasn't one to let his irritation get the best of him, not often, but he couldn't let them being late go unnoticed. Whether they liked it or not, he was going to instill a sense of professionalism in them, as he knew any other Jounin would have left an hour ago, and let them not partake on the mission. It was a harsh lesson to learn, but in times of war one followed missions through, no matter what it required. Even in times of peace, one followed them through to preserve the peace, even if it was short-lived.

"Sorry Naruto, but we thought you said to meet up at the Hokage's Tower, and when we realized you said the South Gate we rushed here as soon as possible," Sakura explained apologetically, bowing in embarrassment. While he understood their mistake, he couldn't let it slip.

"Next time pay more attention to what I say then. If a Jounin was in charge of this mission they would have left without you, and you'd miss out on the mission," Naruto sighed, forcing his irritation to wash away, not wanting to cause a scene. "What's all this?" he asked, pointing to the bags on hers and Shikamaru's back.

"You said to pack supplies for a week, so we did," Shikamaru recited from memory.

"What did you pack?" the brunette asked, though he had a sinking feeling at what they'd say.

"Extra sets of clothing, food, weapons, all that," Sakura chimed in, perplexed as to why he didn't have a bag.

Naruto sighed again, "You don't need extra sets of clothing. Just what's on your backs," he praised them silently on carrying extra food, but didn't voice it as ration-bars achieved the same effect, but at the cost of taste. Damned things tasted like frozen granola bars. Weapons he couldn't touch on, as it never hurt to carry extra as he had learned in previous experiences.

"You mean I have to wear **this** for the next week?" She exclaimed incredulously, pointing to her outfit.

"Yes, you do," Naruto stated simply.

"What if it gets dirty? Or starts to smell?"

"Then you'll just have to wash it."

"And what? Wear nothing while it's being cleaned?"

"Well that's a given. Unless of course you want to get sick cause you decided to wear wet clothing."

"And what if it gets dirty while we're on the way there? You expect me to believe that you or Shikamaru won't peek on me while I'm waiting for it to dry?" At this Shikamaru's face darkened in a blush from the mental picture, though Sakura seemed oblivious to this.

Naruto fought down the urge to yell at the girl. He expected her to put up a fight when it came to staying in the same clothing for a week straight without cleaning them, but he didn't expect it to get this frustrating so fast, "If you don't want to follow my advice, then don't. But I won't slow down so you can keep up," turning and walking towards the South Gate he didn't spare a second glance over his shoulder as gave his information to the Chuunin's guarding it.

"I'll take point," Naruto called back to Konan, rushing a bit ahead to give him time to cool off and reflect on his words, and to let his team do the same. He knew he couldn't fault them for packing extras 'just in case', but he felt they should learn that being a ninja wasn't about hoping your enemy would be kind enough to wait until you could change clothing. Nor would they let you finish eating your lunch. While he knew his words were a little harsh, especially considering Sakura's demeanor, he knew they'd have to learn about being a ninja, either the hard way or the harsh way. Naruto choose the harsh way, because he knew at the end of the day they'd be alive, as opposed to the hard way where they'd be lucky to have all their limbs attached.

Fifty miles south of Konoha, and by Naruto's estimation three quarters of the way to the town, he stopped and looked for a good place for shelter for the night, as well as a nearby location for clean, fresh water. Finding a cave fifty feet from a lake and hidden behind some bushes, he started gathering firewood to help prepare that nights dinner, as well as using a number of clones to catch fish from a stream that fed into the lake. As he started getting their camp set up for the night, he let his mind wander while the clones did the rest of the work.

As Naruto darted out of sight, Sakura let out a soft sigh of relief. He was a nice guy, he really was, but he took the role of 'lead ninja' a bit too seriously, for the pink-haired girl. Her eyes fell on her teacher, Konan, and wondered why she put up with his insubordination. It seemed that whenever she said that 'they had a mission to do' he'd correct her with 'you mean **we** have a mission to do. You just sit around making Origami', which she found to be rude. Yeah, she would admit that Konan hadn't helped them much since they'd become Genin, and often shirked her duties as Jounin to Naruto, but she would never admit it to her face.

Shaking herself from her thoughts she noticed she had fallen behind, and called for her allies to wait for her, and was miffed when they simply ignored her calls and continued walking, forcing her to run to catch up with them. Panting slightly, she tried to strike up a conversation with Shikamaru, though that proved futile as he ignored her and continued walking in silence. Though she couldn't see it, his face was burrowed in thought as he considered Naruto's earlier words. The brunette had made a distinct point in carrying too much gear, though he found it pointless to worry about such things on a routine mission. He would look into it for future missions however, given he ever made it to Chuunin rank.

"Konan-sensei, what is up with Naruto? Why was he making such a big issue about me and Shikamaru being late?" Sakura asked, perplexed as to why he became so uptight about them meeting him two hours after they received their mission and why he made a big deal about them carrying extra supplies.

"Because he asked us to meet him two hours after getting our mission, Sakura," Shikamaru interjected, answering the question for Konan, who smirked at the potential scene unveiling before her eyes. While she had been watching them being trained by Naruto for the last week, she noticed that what held Sakura back the most was her attitude towards being a ninja. She assumed that being a ninja meant she got paid to fight and help other people, not knowing that being a ninja meant so much more.

It meant sacrificing parts of yourself to serve your village, and help allies, to kill those who would pose a threat to peace even if it meant losing your humanity, to live and dying for the mission and the village. Sakura had yet to grasp these concepts, and Konan internally hoped that she could over the course of this mission, as she had the potential to become a strong ninja, but to do so she needed to lose innocent views on ninja.

"I told him that we were mistaken on where we thought we were supposed to meet him though! And he accepted it!" Sakura stated heatedly.

"Yes, but he did something very few Chuunin and Jounin would have done, and that was wait for us. By waiting for us to show up he put the mission at stake, and risked the chance of failing the mission. Any other ninja worth their intelligence and loyalty would have left a few minutes after two hours had passed, and written in the mission report that we were incapable of following simple instructions," Shikamaru continued, further riling up the girl.

"How could the mission fail if he waited one extra hour? I mean, their just bandits, not full-grown ninjas!" she exclaimed futilely.

"While that might be true, what if the bandits are being lead by a missing-nin? If they were being lead by one, the village might be gone by the time we get there, or the bandits might have moved on to another village. And what if we weren't taking on bandits, but a group of missing-nins? Then what? Would you have justified being late then?" Shikamaru said coolly, trying to get the point across to the pink-haired kunoichi without resorting to shouting. But then, that never accomplished much, and often resulted in him getting assaulted by whoever was nearby.

Sakura opened her mouth to retort but was silenced by Konan, "Quiet, both of you. You're arguing is getting you nowhere," Sakura didn't take accept the order however, and opened her mouth to fight it, "Shut it, brat. We're on a mission, and as such I expect you to act like a professional ninja, not an Academy Student. When Naruto chewed you out earlier, he was right; if it was any other Jounin in charge of the mission they would have left without you. You should listen to what he says and either treat this mission seriously or stop being a ninja, it's as simple as that."

The young kunoichi didn't say another peep at her teachers words, and instead looked hurt at the harshness of them, but Konan didn't pay it any attention. She didn't want to defend the boy, as she feared it would go to his head, but it was obvious the pink-haired girl would take a lot of work to mold into a contributing ninja for Konoha. Konan just hoped it wasn't her that had to break her spirit and rebuild her, as she never liked that part of her job, which was part of why she hadn't taken a team before this one.

Hours passed in silence, as the trio progressed south towards the village but their pace slowed the darker it got, coming to a complete stop when they could barely see three feet in front of them, and started to wonder where Naruto was, and whether or not he was at the village or not. They hoped not, as they couldn't traverse the unknown landscape in the dark of night, but were relieved when they distantly spotted a dim light, and headed in the general direction of where it lay, finding Naruto plopped against a tree log, apparently slumbering.

When Konan walked over to wake him up however, his eyes shot open and locked with hers, earning a slight smirk from the older woman who sat on a log opposite the brunette. Moving from the hard earth and onto the log he slept against, he reached for one of the fish that lay roasting above the fire, and indicated his team to indulge in the food he had gathered for them, which they did so after a slight hesitation.

Sakura looked around the clearing with a questioning glance, not noticing any tents or any such things and asked Naruto where they would all be sleeping.

"There's a cave a little bit south of here, behind some bushes. You and Konan-sensei will sleep there and me and Shika will sleep out here and rotate guard duty," he informed her, not looking directly at her while talking. "I'll be taking the first shift, since you guys have been walking all day, we'll rotate shifts every five hours, okay Shika?" at the boys nod, the ninjas finished their make-shift dinner and the kunoichi's retreated to the cave south of the clearing while Shikamaru leaned up against a tree log and fell asleep after twenty minutes of trying.

Naruto leaped into the treetops surrounding the clearing and created a few clones that would act as sentries while he watched the fire, deep in thought until he felt a familiar presence sit next to him. Minutes passed in silence as Naruto watched the fire jump to and fro in the pit, until the person spoke.

"You know, Jounin are typically supposed to watch over the Genin on their missions, even if one of the Genin are given free-reign of the mission and it's objectives," Konan joked, or tried to at least. In truth it was to break the unusual silence between them. "Care to share whats on your mind? You seemed rather distracted earlier when we were eating."

The brunette stared at her, a serious look on his face as he wondered how he could explain what had been bothering him since he awoke from his nap while waiting for the trio to meet up with him. Naruto sighed, a feat that didn't go unnoticed by Konan who looked on in interest.

"What's with you Konan-sensei? You ignore me, and by proxy my teammates, but when we are out of prying ears and eyes, you act all buddy-buddy with me. What do you want from me? Me to gush my inner demons and ask for guidance from someone who hasn't been around since I became a Genin? For me to ask for training? Speaking of which, you still owe me those lessons you wagered on our little bet," Naruto said in a melancholy tone. He couldn't grasp exactly why this Konan would constantly ignore him when he would ask for training, for both him and his teammates, and as such was wary of her attempts of small-chat when they were well away from Konoha and out of ear-shot from the ANBU that patrolled it.

She looked at him as though she should be offended by his criticism, but didn't reprimand him for his choice of words, "What I want from you is to drop your attitude. I took your team on the good faith you three had the potential for greatness, and you do. However your attitude is what's preventing you and your friends from receiving training. If you drop your attitude then you'll get the lessons I promised," she said haughtily, trying to intimidate him by straightening her posture and narrowing her eyes, but it did no good against the dimension-hopper.

"And what, pray tell, is wrong with my attitude?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow. He wasn't in the mood for beating around the bush with eloquent retorts and rebuttals and as such wanted the conversation dealt and done with as soon as possible.

"Your arrogance. How you acted after your test against Kakashi. How you act like you understand the techniques and chakra training you've been teaching your friends. How you assumed control and ordered your friends around earlier, even though you had control over the mission. I will refuse any requests for individual training until you're attitude is fixed, as I won't allow my teaching to spawn someone who'd kill a teammate in the future because they didn't get their way," she listed off her considerable list of event she'd witnessed in her short time as his teacher. Naruto simply snorted at her list, earning a narrowed glare from the woman.

"You know nothing about me, and yet you have the gall to assume I'm a traitor. I don't know how you came to the conclusion I've got a superiority complex, but it's rather insulting that the Paper Maiden would make such baseless assumptions on second-hand information. Especially considering the Paper Maidens notoriety on information-gathering, or rather the lack-there-of," the brunette spat, earning a slight widening of eyes when he referred to her by her name in the underworld. Very few outside of the Hokage, Sannin, and ANBU knew of the name, but none would have dared refer to her by it, as it indicated a dark part of her past. The fact a Genin knew the name sent up flags in her mind though she resisted the urge to wrap her slender, unflawed hands around his neck and strangle the information from him.

"How do know that name, boy?" she asked, her tone dripped in subtle venom. Naruto seemed unphased by the change in attitude by the blue-haired woman however, and continued to stare intently at the flames as they continued to feed off the air. It helped him keep concentrated on their conversation, without losing control of his dwindling temper, which he was grateful for.

"I'm not telling you how, though I can assure the answer would shock you to the core," the boy stated simply, effectively ending that line of conversation. Konan, deciding not to rouse Shikamaru and expose him to her nickname, dropped the topic, instead studying the boy intently. Their conversation, and his harsh criticism of her teaching methods, had made her rethink some of the things she thought she knew about the boy. While she still assumed he was arrogant with possibly a superiority complex, he was better off than she initially thought, but still vowed to keep an eye on him and his training. It wouldn't do for him to trick her into teaching him and reveal later he was as she feared.

Without a word she left the fire-lit clearing, instead choosing to wander the treetops and clear her mind. While she was certain they would have no problem with ordinary bandits, especially considering Naruto's leadership skills, it wouldn't hurt to be extra diligent in the upcoming week. The rest of the night passed without further events or confrontations, and when Naruto woke Shikamaru to switch guard duty, Shikamaru studied his friend, wondering what could make him take his ninja career so seriously.

It was no surprise to Shikamaru that his friend pushed himself almost daily when he trained, even when he snuck off during class and used an advanced technique to follow Mizuki-sensei. Shikamaru had always assumed he trained to meet some unknown goal faster, but when he asked Naruto about it, he told the black-haired boy that he didn't wish his 'precious people' to be harmed, and would train till he dropped to prevent it.

Naruto had no clan, Shikamaru knew that for a fact as the boy confronted a Hyuuga over it the year before. It started innocently enough, Naruto had bumped into the boy and gave him a half-hearted apology which the Hyuuga spat back in his face. This earned a simple shrug from Naruto who started to walk away before the Hyuuga made rather derogatory remarks about the lack of heritage though Shika was surprised at the ease Naruto shrugged those comments off as well.

Something in Naruto snapped however, after a comment about how "only those who are weak fight Fate, and the strong accept it" made Naruto rush the boy and wrap his hands around his throat. The Hyuuga looked scared for his life, and Shika had a sinking feeling that if it wasn't for the ANBU squad that had been watching the fight, the boy would have been killed mercilessly and there would be no one strong enough to stop Naruto. Such an event earned a wide breadth from Shikamaru for a short while, until he realized something Naruto would spout whenever it was pointed out that all his training wasn't necessary, not until he became a ninja anyways.

"I don't care that my training isn't necessary Shika. All that matters to me is being able to protect my precious people if shit hits the fan. It may seem pointless right now, but in a few years you'll understand what I'm doing what I'm doing."

"What do mean I'll understand in a few years? What are you talking about Naruto?" Shika asked the boy, clearly confused on what he meant. They were close, but Shikamaru still didn't know every little secret the boy had, or the exact motivations on why he trained continuously every day.

Naruto looked at the boy for a long time, without saying anything, before speaking, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. And I don't even know if it's true or not. All I know is that I have a bad feeling shit is gonna turn upside down in a few years. I'm training to prevent it from happening, and in the worst case, protect my precious people if it does. I'd die a thousand deaths before letting you guys would get hurt. It may not make a lot of sense right now, but trust me, in a few years you'll understand what I'm talking about."

As Shikamaru sat in front of the fire thinking about the conversation a year ago, he began to realize that Naruto might have been right about protecting people when "shit hits the fan", as he recalled the mock-test against the scarily-strong Jounin a month ago. It displayed the sort of nose-dive any given mission can take, when mixed with the right variable. Whether it be a lowly Genin or fear-inducing Jounin, any mission can fail for the pettiest of reasons, even crushing a single leaf underfoot could spell disaster against a experienced, or inexperienced group. It brought the old saying "no matter how strong you are, there's always stronger than you" to the forefront of his mind, and infused him with the urge to not have to rely on others so much in future missions. Unbelievable as it may be, it made the lazy genius want to train and avert as much bloodshed as possible, even if it meant shedding blood to do so.

Watching the first intently, Shikamaru missed the small smile on Naruto's face as he watched his friend, no doubt mulling over the conversation with Konan and the events of the day. It was looking like things were starting to go his way after all...

Itachi stood silently over the entrance to the valley, ignoring the rain as it pelted him and his partner. The target was supposed to be hidden in seclusion there, but judging from the size of the area it would take them a month to search top to bottom, and in that time he could slip out with them none the wiser. Luckily, or unluckily, for Itachi, Aburame Shino was sent alongside him to assist in the location of their target.

His bugs had been trained for years to disable and kill targets with ease, but they needed him disabled. For the time being at least. If he proved unsavory for Akatsuki he would be killed, simple as that. As he stood watching over the motionless ninja, he idly wondered what had helped fester his desire to escape Akatsuki, and what it could spell for him. It was not the first time he had wished he wasn't part of the organization, but it was the first time he had been seriously considering it, though he hadn't the slightest idea on what could have caused the seed to take place and grow at such a quick rate, but brushed it off. If he wanted to escape the organization it would take more than a nights planning, that much was for sure.

"He's located in the south-east corner," Shino stated without emotion. Coming from anyone but a Aburame, it would be disturbing at the level of emotionless dialog they could utter, but it seemed natural on the boy.

"Is he disabled?" Itachi asked simply. It was a rhetorical question, since he knew the boy had disabled him for safe-keeping, but it seemed easier to ask, than to assume. That, and he knew the boy wouldn't question an order from a superior, even if they could fight each other to a standstill.

"Yes."

"Good. Let us get out of this rain and...**persuade** him to assist Akatsuki," a lighting bolt lit up the night for dramatic emphasis, as the two dashed into the dark valley towards the unconscious man, both wondering if he would accept the offer, but for two very different reasons.

A/N: Another chapter done, and we're finally slowly getting into the plot. More plot points will be revealed in the next chapter, as well as a honest-to-goodness fight. Review responses follow.

Hiroshima Namikaze, ColinMac: Yes, Naruto's canon affinity IS wind. His earth affinity stems from his desire to kill Madara. Madara's affinity (in this story) is fire, which can't be defeated by a wind affinity. Naruto made a deal with the Kyuubi to obtain "an affinity that will allow me to kill Madara Uchiha". He still retains his wind affinity, but it's one of his trump cards, and won't be shown in battle for a while (not until he next runs into someone from Akatsuki anyways).


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: New chapter, yay. Took longer than usual to get this one up as I couldn't find a draft I liked, before this one anyways. Fight scene, some character development, and a POV scene my beta suggested. I rather liked the POV scene, as I've never written anything like that before, but I might include some more in future chapters, depending on how well this one goes over. Review responses at the bottom, as per usual.

Last chapters summary: After getting their first C-rank mission, Naruto and crew (with Konan) set out to assist a town having a bandit problem. Also, the first members of Akatsuki make their appearence, setting their sights on a missing-nin that's dangerously close to Konoha. What will happen when they meet and what does it mean for Naruto and crew?

--

"So? What do we do Naruto?" Naruto took a moment to realize that someone was talking and turned to face them, dispelling his thoughts as they sighed in annoyance.

"Sorry, was off in my own little world there for a moment. What were you saying?" the brunette apologized with a somber tone. His thoughts weren't completely dark, or at least not to the blonde-turned-brunette. They were just reflecting the one time he spent three weeks infiltrating a Sound base, only to find it was an elaborate trap set up by the Snake. It was one of Naruto's first missions as a Chuunin, and cost the Leaf four Chuunin and a Jounin, and started to make Naruto realize how mortal he was and how much more his training would need to step up to stand a chance against the rogue Sannin and the Akatsuki. While this mission was successful and paled in comparison to the A-rank infiltration mission, Naruto could see some similarities, though he wasn't going to voice them to his team.

"I asked, what do we do now? Do we stay a day to make sure we got all the bandits or do we go home?" Sakura asked, wondering what would cause their temporary team-leader to lose concentration. All week long he kept his eye on their team and the mission, and now he loses focus, when an ambush would be perfect to spring upon the three preteens.

"We leave now. There was only a dozen bandits, and we got them all, including their spy in the town. No reason to stay here except to be bored out of our minds, which I don't plan on doing," Naruto said in a clipped tone, walking away from the pink-haired while she stared at him in confusion. His message got to her clear and simple, but ever since she had started to get to know the boy, she was confused with his actions, his personality, and his body language.

She wasn't going to admit she was great at reading body language, not at the moment anyways, but every time she talked with the boy he acted as though she was below him, though he would protect her in less than a heartbeat. As though she was weak and useless, but worth protecting regardless of the fact.

At first she considered talking to Konan-sensei about it, but realized that would be a bad move judging by the twos interactions. It seemed each time they met and talked, they would be civil and at each others throats in less than two sentences, reminding the pink-haired girl of Naruto and Ino's interactions except with Naruto and Ino it was a playful threat of violence, but with Konan it was serious.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts she slowly went over a mental checklist of what she had brought with her on their mission, realizing now what Naruto meant about not needing extra sets of clothing and such. It only slowed her down when leaving the town, and she noticed she was only five minutes behind the rest of the group even though Shikamaru also packed extra supplies but had gotten them together the night before they would leave.

As she caught up with them, and mentally told herself to not bring extra clothes and shampoo the next time they had a mission outside of the village, she didn't offer an excuse to them for being late knowing it would earn a verbal lashing from Naruto about not being prepared for departures. While she had understood what he meant about being on time during missions, as they almost gave away their position earlier in the week when she had shown up ten minutes late, and earned a rather harsh tongue-lashing from the boy but realized she had deserved it ultimately.

Hours passed in silence as the team and Konan walked through the forest at a leisurely pace, not in a hurry to get home and write up the mission report, though it wasn't an uncomfortable silence as birds and the other denizens of the forest made themselves known. After the fourth hour of silence between the four however, Shikamaru unexpectedly broke it by asking Konan a question about the Chuunin exams, mostly whether or not they would be allowed to participate in it or would have to wait a year. Sakura listened intently on her response, a maybe, and started to ask the older woman a slew of questions about extra training and how long she had been a Jounin along with other related questions.

Naruto half-listened to their conversation while fighting to keep a smirk from appearing on his face. While he didn't doubt the blue-haired woman would withhold his training for a while longer, it was refreshing to hear that she would be willing to train Sakura and Shikamaru, as he could devote more time to his own separate training.

His attention was grabbed, however, when he distantly heard birds take flight in panic, a hundred yards north-east if his senses were right. Konan noticed it too, stopping mid-sentence of what uses a lightning-affinity could have for a medic-nin, which Sakura noticed off the bat and Shikamaru realized a second later.

Withdrawing a kunai from his pouch, Naruto unconsciously leaked chakra into the ground below his feet and summoned enough to form a katana four-feet in length, similar to the one he used against Kakashi but hardened to a diamond-toughness. Whatever was coming towards them was at least a Jounin-level, but distantly he felt two more chakra signatures follow the Jounin-leveled one. One of the signatures was quite familiar to Naruto, while the other was akin to Sasuke's except significantly larger and different. A minute passed in tense silence as the two Genin paid attention to their sensei and team leaders actions, withdrawing their own kunai to prepare themselves for battle.

"Don't bother getting involved in this fight. You don't stand a chance against any of the three people coming after us, and would get killed faster than you got defeated against Kakashi," Naruto snapped, inwardly growling in a growing fury. If his instincts could be trusted, either he or Konan would struggle against one of the three, even if he knew how to defeat him in an all-out battle.

Thirty seconds passed after his statement before a disheveled man emerged from a bush, bleeding and panicking from the wounds on his body and his wild eyes. He opened his mouth to yell for help but exclaimed a scream of pain as he fell to the ground, a kunai lodged cleanly in his back. Two figures emerged the bush after him, both wearing ill-boding black cloaks with red clouds embroider on them. Atop their heads perched two straw-hats, but Naruto knew their identities without removing the hats, and regretted not training harder to prepare for an early encounter with Akatsuki.

"Sloppy work. You missed his throat by a good six inches, Shino-kun," one of the figures admonished his partner, reassuring Naruto's identity for both of them. As he slashed the throat of the moaning ninja, he took an account of his surroundings. "It seems we have an audience, Shino-kun. You know what to do," he ordered, as the other figure disappeared in a blur with a kunai aimed at Sakura's neck.

"You die first," he stated simply as the kunai got dangerously close to her jugular vein, but was interrupted by a hail of kunai impacting his body, while Naruto's foot was outstretched towards his pinned body.

"_Landslide_," the brunette muttered as he too disappeared in a blur, aiming a fist at the boys abdomen but came up short as it collided with the tree, cracking it in half.

"_Mushi Bunshin_," Shino said in an emotionless tone. Attempting to use the bug clone to drown the boy and drain his chakra, he found it fruitless as the boys chakra level stayed the same, forcing him to hurriedly dodge to the right as a clone emerged from the ground to stab his lower back. Aiming a kick at the _Earth Clone_'s head, it dispelled with no extra effort as the clone covered in bugs did the same.

"Heh, almost got ya," Naruto calmly stated as he jumped from the tree he had split in two. Shino simply studied the boy, hoping to gleam a weakness from him to try and exploit, while Itachi took this moment of tense silence to engage Konan in a one on one fight, and found him throw back fifty yards in an attempt to prevent him from using Sakura and Shikamaru as hostages, while the two were glued to the spot while watching the two strongest members of their group fight.

Noticing an opening the Akatsuki boy discretely sent in bugs to try and catch him off guard, though Naruto was oblivious to their workings. Absentmindedly Naruto swung his earth-constructed katana and blew the bugs away from him, but he noticed they were unaffected by his show of force, forcing him to jump off the ground to avoid being trapped and an easy target for Shino.

"Simple minded fool," a voice muttered near his head as Shino landed a solid punch to the back of Naruto's unguarded head, mentally telling his bugs to converge on his body when it landed and created a medium-sized crater. Landing in a crouch the boy watched as his bugs covered and devoured Naruto's body, before walking towards the dimension-hoppers teammates.

A strong punch to his jaw sent him flying off course however, and another three punches to his abdomen and chest broke two ribs and forced the air from his lungs. A final kick to the stomach sent him into the crater Naruto's body had caused when it landed, though Shino noted upon landing the his bugs and the brunette were not in it. Struggling to get to his feet due to the pain of the broken ribs, Shino stared at his attacker, an indecipherable body covered ins his bugs, though the boy knew deep down it was his opponent.

Sensing his chakra flaring up, Shino could do nothing except watch as the bugs covering his body fell to the ground, unmoving and unaffected by Shino's mental commands. Naruto's skin was covered in bug bites, but seemed oblivious to them and walked towards the Akatsuki trainee calmly, dropping a kunai onto the ground while Shino watched it be devoured by the earth.

"You know what happens when a ninja offers up an item to the element their aligned to. It gives it's properties to whatever technique you use, and molds it to fit a deformed iteration the item. I just offered a kunai, so would you care to guess what'll happen to my next technique?" he asked nicely, waiting for the preteen to answer. While he was stronger than he anticipated for Shino, it seemed that his time with Akatsuki had hindered his growth, as the Shino he remembered would have put up more of a fight. But it was of no matter to Naruto now, he had clearly bested the boy without much effort, even if he took a few hits in the process.

"_Bug Clone Explosion_," Shino croaked, the words barely audible but Naruto was able to pick up on them as the technique did nothing, prompting Shino to try it again, and again.

"You're bugs are dead, Shino. I poisoned them when they devoured my clone earlier, but delayed the effects of the poison a number of minutes. Otherwise you could have escaped and I'd have shown my full potential earlier than I would have liked," he informed Itachi's younger partner, watching his eyes widen slightly at the revelation.

"So you drew out the fight to prevent me from running?" he asked calmly, forming an escape plan, hoping his opponents technique wouldn't work on him.

"More or less. I didn't plan on being thrown around like a little kid, or taking as many hits as I did, but did draw out our little scuffle so I could ask you some things," Naruto admitted, sheepishly smiling at his carelessness in their fight. Deciding to take his slight slip in defense, Shino summoned what bugs he could in an attempt to escape, but ditched the plan when Naruto aimed a fierce kick at his face and forced the Akatsuki trainee to duck and try to put some distance between him and the brunette.

Naruto was unaffected by the boys dodge and quickly chased after him, aiming a number of punches at his chest though Shino hurriedly avoided them but managed to put himself off balance which Naruto quickly took advantage, landing a knee on his stomach which sent him rolling away from the dimension-hopper.

"Don't bother trying to escape. My control over my element is anything beyond what you can comprehend. To be perfectly honest with you, I haven't been taking this fight one-hundred percent seriously, but as I stated earlier; I don't want to show my true potential right now. So any plan you can formulate to escape are lost on me, as I can easily counter-act any plan you come up with," the dimension-hopper explained to the trainee. While he rarely showed emotion, it was obvious Shino was at the end of his rope, most of his trump cards required a large number of bugs but since Naruto had easily poisoned most of his supply with one move, he was running out of options. Attempting to mold chakra in an attempt at a last resort, he found himself incapable of breathing when Naruto grabbed him by his throat and held him in mid-air.

"I know what you're capable of, Aburame Shino. And whatever you throw at me, I can counter with ease. If I truly wanted to, I could kill you right now, but I won't. For the simple reason that I don't kill cripples. Your 'training' with Akatsuki has stunted your growth and potential; all the teachings by S-rank ninjas means absolute shit when you can't utilize what tools you have at your disposal. Not to mention your information on Akatsuki serves a purpose in defeating them, which I think the interrogators in Konoha will find to be **very** useful," Naruto lectured, tightening his grip to force the boy to focus on the conversation. Sensing Konan approach him, he dropped Shino, the boy massaging his bruised throat but making no attempt to escape. Even he could tell both ninja could catch him in less than ten seconds, and the lack of Itachi made him realize he had no choice but to go with them.

"Did he get away?" Naruto asked rhetorically, already knowing the answer. He felt the Uchiha flee minutes earlier, and knew that Konan had watched the last few minutes of his and Shino's fight, but didn't bother pulling punches to hid his potential in front of his teacher. It took a couple of days of intense thinking but he realized that the main reason Konan was withholding his training was because of his likeliness to her teammate Pein, as he recalled her mentioning 'you look just like him, except for all the metal' a few times in his home dimension. She was afraid he'd turn out to be just like Pein, and he knew that the only way to prove her wrong was to show he knew exactly what he was doing, and would do whatever it took to protect those important to him.

"Yeah," she replied, looking slightly winded. It was obvious she put up a fight against the Uchiha, judging from her missing kimono, but it was clear that Itachi never stood much of a chance against her superior skills and experience. However it drove home the fact she was getting old, even if she wasn't 40 years old yet. If she was in her 20s the Uchiha would have been killed within the first minute of their fight, but the fact he got away clearly showed her skills were starting to deteriorate and would need to retire soon lest she be killed during the course of a mission.

"We have a source of information about the group that attacked us. Maybe he'll be willing to part with some names, and even their goals, to prevent a future attack," Naruto muttered, walking to where he left his teammates. He found that they hadn't moved much, besides sitting against a pair of trees and jumping to their feet when they noticed Naruto.

"What happened? Did you win?" Sakura asked excitedly. The last question was rather redundant, but Naruto neglected to point it out to the girl, as she was obviously worried for him and Konan.

"One of the guys got away, but mine didn't. We're going to wait for the ANBU to get here, before we head home," he answered her first question, and avoiding her second. It wasn't that he didn't know how to respond to it, but he didn't want them questioning why he, a lowly Genin, beat his enemy while Konan, a legendary Jounin, couldn't.

"What? Why are we waiting for the ANBU to get here? Was Konan-sensei harmed? What about you? You look like you were burned!" she wondered, clearly confused while Shikamaru looked as though he had a grasp on the situation.

"Konan wasn't harmed. The ANBU are being called because we captured a prisoner, and protocol dictates we hand all prisoners to them. Added to the fact his abilities make it easy for him to escape spurred our decision to call them as they're trained to deal with tricky prisoners," Naruto explained simply, hoping Sakura wouldn't press any more questions about Konan. In the time he had known Konan, she rarely liked being reminded of her age.

She wasn't so vain as to think she wasn't getting old, quite contrary to that as she knew she was getting old for an active ninja, but felt she could keep being a ninja with no opposition well into her 50s, much like the Sannin. Her fight with Itachi was proof that she wasn't as good as she was ten years earlier, and made her realize she would need to improve her skills or retire, as she was likely to be killed in a mission.

"But you were able to beat your opponent, why not Konan?" Sakura continued, earning a groan from the brunette. It was an honest question, Naruto knew, and an innocent one at that, but it didn't help that he tried to put off this discussion for a later date.

"You have to understand something, Sakura. Konan hasn't had a serious mission in quite some time, and she's getting old. She's almost 40 years old and most ninjas retire before they hit 35 because they start to lose the spirit to fight. She won't admit it to anyone, but she knows she's getting old, and will probably have to retire in the next few years unless she wants to be killed in action," Naruto said in a calm tone, stressing the fact their teacher was getting old for a ninja, as most rarely lived long enough to get to 40 while on active duty. There were obvious exceptions, as the Sannin were considered active even if they rarely engaged enemy ninja, and the Hokage was still active even if he never took on any missions nowadays.

"But-" she started but was cut off by Naruto.

"Drop it Sakura. I shouldn't have told you that last part but did so as a show of faith and trust. Don't bring it up again, even if it's with me. Konan let her enemy get away, she knows this, and she knows why he got away. Hell, she probably knows we're having this talk right now. Just let the issue drop and let Konan deal with the problem on her own," the brunette snapped, starting to lose his patience with the pink-haired girl. She had a good heart, that much was obvious, but would need to learn that not every ninja needed someone to hold their hand to get through tough situations. Walking back to where he left Shino and Konan, he noticed the trainee was bound and unconscious while Konan was talking to a small bird on her finger, which took flight as Naruto approached the blue-haired Jounin.

"How long till a squad of ANBU gets here?" he asked, figuring it would take at least three hours for the bird to get to Konoha, and probably another four until the squad would get here.

"Around three hours. Maybe less, if a squad and can be put together fast enough. Until then, we wait and rest," she responded, sitting against a tree near Shino, in case he tried to get away. Naruto mimicked her action, sitting on the other side of the boy and watching as Sakura and Shikamaru entered the small clearing of trees and sitting a distance away from the two.

"I know you talked to them, about my fight with the Uchiha," Konan began in a soft voice. It was obvious they were well out of hearing-range, but Naruto felt it redundant to mention it to her.

"And?"

She was silent for a minute, obviously thinking over what she was going to say. It wasn't like her to admit flaws and weaknesses, even if she knew of them, but this was one of the few times that she felt the need to do so.

"You're...correct. In that I am getting old and need to retire soon. To be honest I haven't had a serious fight in a long time, and my fight with that boy showed me that I'm too far gone to be able to regain some of my old strength back. It's been in the forefront of my mind for the last few years, I just brushed it aside without a second thought, figuring I could win with just perseverance," she started, an emotionless expression on her face though Naruto could tell she was fighting with herself internally.

"If you knew you were getting weaker, then why didn't you just retire? No one would have faulted you if you did," Naruto asked, confused. While he admitted most of his knowledge was of another dimensions Konan, and that he really didn't know this one all that much, the fact she was admitting weakness threw him for a loop. The Konan he knew never did such a thing, but it drove home the point that this was another Konan, with different mannerisms, personality quirks, and other such diversifying characteristics.

She laughed softly, earning a confused look from the boy. It was now clear as day that this Konan was completely different from the one he worked with. Just the mere hint of her being weak threw that Konan into a violent fury, though it was odd as she had her trademark air of calmness while pummeling some hapless Chuunin black and blue.

"That's what he said, last year. 'Why don't you just retire Konan? You keep moaning about not having anything to do around the village and any mission I send you out on is pushed onto your teammates. I mean, you've admitted that you're skills are fading because you don't fight any of the opposition, so why not retire and enjoy the rest of your life?' he would say whenever I brought up that there was nothing to do around the village for me, and I'm just now starting to seriously consider it," Konan recited from memory.

"Who's 'he'?" Naruto asked, feigning ignorance. He had a good clue on who the man was, since their relationship was common-knowledge to all ninja that had methods of gathering information. While he didn't partake in gossip, very few ninja did, it never hurt to keep an eye on allies, to ensure they're not a spy, as well as not being a liability on a mission.

She blinked at him, clearly surprised that the "Rookie of the year" didn't know who she was talking about, given the rumors of his information gathering methods, but brushed it off as more over exaggerated claims about the boys abilities. Admittedly, he was a very skilled ninja for his age, and had the potential to match Kakashi with the right training, but she felt he had a lot more to learn in the years coming.

"Kamikaze Minato, the Yondaime," she said simply, using both his given name and his title. He usually complained whenever she used his given name in his office, citing 'a lack of respect for the Hokage', though she never bothered adjusting the habit. They both knew she had a great deal of respect for him, and him for her, but she never used the title 'Hokage' unless it was important, or if she was being direct with him.

Naruto said nothing, his suspicions confirmed though it felt redundant to assure himself of their relationship. Instead of replying to her, he laid back against the tree and attempted to fall asleep, mumbling to Konan to wake him when the ANBU squad got there, as he was going to get some rest while he could. She didn't respond that she would, but then, she never responded to his requests as she felt it redundant to confirm when he was asleep. Perhaps, he thought to himself, she wasn't that much different from the Konan he was used to.

--

_Shino's POV_

Hours have passed since my humiliating defeat at the hands of a mere Genin. And yet, I can't shake his words. Was all those years training in the Akatsuki more hurtful than helpful? The instructors in Akatsuki said I was doing better than they expected, but was I really? Was I trained for seven years straight just to lose in my first real fight? I do not know.

My mind tells me that Pein-sama will be most displeased to here I have been captured, but my mind also tells me he will not sacrifice the other members to liberate me. Pein-sama is too intelligent, too cunning to let a simple act of chance ruin his plans. No doubt my spot will be replaced within the day, by another person like me. A 'prodigy'. One from a strong clan that can be manipulated and forged into a strong weapon. To fight against other members of the clan, but at an advantage, when the time comes.

I wonder if I should bite my tongue, kill myself before the interrogator gets here. Or if I should simply tell them all I know. My teachings say I should kill myself. We were told from a young age that some of us would no doubt end up in a similar cell to this one, at one point in our life. Either because of Jounin and ANBU requisites, which places you in a cell for an indeterminate time to see if you can be trusted, or because you were caught in the course of a mission. They often told you to kill yourself if you were caught, but I often wondered to myself what would happen if it was simply a loyalty test, and not an interrogation tactic.

The isolation they expose me too would drive other prisoners insane, but for me it is simply another day in my life, albeit in the hands of the enemy. I was used to the isolation during training, rarely making contact with the other 'prodigies', and often went out of my way to remain in my room, in the peace and quiet. This is different however. During my stay with the Akatsuki, I would converse with my bugs, discussing possible tactics and techniques, which kept my mind focused.

I knew from a young age that Akatsuki was using the 'prodigies' as tools of war, and cherished their members more than the 'prodigies', and strove to break from them. I think Itachi-san felt the same way, he kept double-checking escape routes while traveling, as though he had half a mind to leave me right then and there, either dying or alive. I wonder what would have happened if he were the one to engage that Genin? Would he have lost? I like to think he could have defeated the Genin, but something about him gave me the impression he would have defeated Itachi-san.

Would he have sat in this interrogation cell for as long as I have? Or would he have told them everything from the get go, earning a shorter sentence in the process of helping take down Akatsuki? I do not claim to be able to guess what he would have done, but Itachi-san is similar to me, in a few aspects.

We acknowledge that we are being used as tools, and can be tossed away as such. We bide our time until the time is right, and then we escape, even if it is under questionable events. But before that time comes along, we act loyally, without fault, without question, to the superiors in Akatsuki. I do not act under illusions of grandeur. I did not plan on losing that fight with that Genin, nor did I plan on getting captured. But it has happened, and I must accept my fate, for better or for worse.

The only question that remains, is whether I join forces against Akatsuki, or no forces at all, as those are my only two choices.

--

A/N: Finally got this chapter finished, now onto the next chapter. It'll hold a bit less action, though it makes up for it by showing some rather...unusual sides of Naruto. Nothing bad, but my way of presenting character flaws.

Review responses.

Hiroshima Namikaze: His control over wind will probably shock you, when it's revealed. Thanks for reviewing though )

To everyone else who reviewed; thank you. While my review numbers are low, I'm not complaining since I know at least 3 of my reviewers consistently read it ;).


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Took longer than usual to get this chapter up, mostly because my beta was MIA for over two weeks due to college. I'm using this A/N to put out a request for another beta, who doesn't mind discussing various ideas for the story and whatnot, because despite the efficency of my current one, his activity is rather sporadic, which makes timely updates a hassel (though not impossible). So if you're interested, either let me know via PM or review, whichever is more convinent for you. This chapter contains a bit of character development, and a little of plot progression. Next chapter contains a lot of character development, but is nessecary since it gets past the first test of the Chuunin Exam. Review responses at the bottom, as per usual.

Last Chapter's Summary: After finishing their first C-ranked mission, Naruto and crew stumbled across two members of Akatsuki, who attempted to wipe out the team to cover up their activities, but were scared off by the combined forces of Konan and Naruto. What reprecussions will stem from this fight and how deep will they run?

_A Month Later_

"Naruto?" Ino called out to get his attention, the brunette currently displaying an array of acrobatics over a lake located a mile from Konoha. It didn't help the blonde in concentrating when he was shirtless, showing off his attractive, in the words of other kunoichi who definitely were not Ino, upper-body.

"Yes Ino?" landing softly on the water, though even if he tried he wouldn't have been able to make a sound by landing on the water. In the water, of course, but not on it.

"Do you think I'm ready to take the Chuunin exams with my team?" If it was any other man, they would have faltered at the question, fearing physical retribution. But for Naruto, he stopped his exercises and raised an eyebrow as he walked to the edge of the lake and onto solid ground, where he grabbed a towel to do away with the sweat he had accumulated.

"Do **you** think you're ready Ino?" he echoed her question, looking at her intently as she fidgeted nervously under his gaze. A minute passed in silence as she thought about her answer, during which Naruto took a swig from a water bottle he had brought with him before sitting in the shade of a nearby tree to cool off.

"...yes, I think I'm ready," she answered timidly, joining Naruto under the tree.

"Then why did you ask me a question you already knew the answer to?" he asked, basking in the lower temperature the shade provided him. It had been three weeks since his fight with Shino, and two weeks since his meeting with the Hokage about an early promotion because of it. Naruto turned down the offer however, citing that 'he didn't want to earn a promotion because of luck and extra training', but instead wanted 'to earn it because of hard work, not because I got lucky'.

"...because I want an honest opinion. And I know my teammates will say I'm ready even if I'm not, because they're afraid I'll retaliate physically for implying I'm weak," she murmured. It was an unspoken agreement between the two, to never openly discuss her advanced bloodline as Ino admitted she had no control over it and could accidentally find out something she wasn't supposed to know. From what she had told him about her bloodline, the more emotional she got the more it would get out of control, which could end in disaster for her if she suffered too much emotional and mental trauma.

"And...?" Naruto knew she wasn't finished, as Ino had a tendency of being dramatic about things and was just waiting for him to push her so she could finish her speech.

She turned her head to glare at him, before continuing, "And I'm asking for your opinion because I know how you'll react, and because you won't mince words about whether or not I'm ready for the Chuunin exam."

"Honestly? I don't know. It's been months since we've last hung out, what with you avoiding me like the plague and me training all the time. You could be ready, and you could **not** be ready, but without seeing how much you've improved, I can't tell you honestly. Unless of course you want me to say you are, only for you to find out later that you aren't," Naruto trailed off, watching her from the corner of his eye as she restrained herself enough to not throttle the boy. While he was being completely honest with her, which she knew without reading his mind, the fact he was being vague was grating her already-frayed nerves.

"Alright! I get it! You want me to prove I'm ready! Fine, I'll indulge in your damned fantasy!" she shouted in aggravation, getting up and walking 30 feet away from him before turning and facing him, her hands on her hips. "Is this far enough away? Or should I walk right into the damned lake and indulge in **another** one of your fantasy's?" she asked rhetorically while Naruto suppressed a laugh, absentmindedly creating a couple of clones for her to fight. At once her angry demeanor faded away as she focused on the clones, wondering which one she would be fighting first or if they'd all jump her at once.

"It'll be one on one Ino. They're _Earth Clones_, so it'll take less energy to dispel them than my _Shadow Clones_, but still get the same effect from fighting. They've got roughly five percent of my max power, so it'll be a good enough fight for you, unless you've gotten a lot better in the last five months," he lectured, watching as she nodded her acknowledgment and quickly dodged a punch from the nearest clone.

Naruto watched intently as Ino sparred with his clones, noting that her taijutsu form had become better, and more refined since the last time she had sparred with his clones, and seemed to improvise her techniques as well, judging from the surprising move she used to dispel his first clone. After taking a direct punch to her shoulder, she recoiled more than usual, and used the opening to deliver a swift kick to the back of the clones neck, causing it to crumble into dust as it was dispelled.

The next clone stepped up the fight, taking a note from her book and improvise a few of it's own techniques, which she had trouble keeping up with. After a minute of watching the clone trounce her every strategy and tactic, Naruto was going to dispel it forcefully when he saw her preform a tactic he knew most kunoichi would find...tasteless as well as 'demeaning for all kunoichi who are treated as sex symbols, and not people'.

It had seemed that the clone had managed to trap Ino in a rather compromising position, where her only way of escape was to forfeit, or do away her top, which she swiftly discarded, confusing the clone and allowing her to dispel without a second thought. The action stunned the other clone, giving her enough time to turn and glare at Naruto who looked equally stunned but for less time than the clone, before Ino took the opportunity to defeat the clone in record time for her.

Gathering her top, she put it on before someone could wander into the isolated lake and discover something they weren't supposed to. As she walked back towards Naruto, she continued to glare at him though it lessened as her telepathy picked up that he didn't expect his clones to put her in that position, nor did he expect herself to shun her modesty to escape and win.

"Say anything about this Naruto...and you **will **regret it," she threatened, though it went without saying that he wouldn't have mentioned it to anyone, as they wouldn't have believed him anyways.

"Now why would I do that Ino? For starters, no one would believe me as most would assume you don't get your hands dirty during training. Also, if I told people that this little...event happened, it would mean you would stop bugging me for training, and thus deny me future events," he replied cheekily, watching as she restrained herself from assaulting him. Sobering up, he continued in a serious tone, "You did great Ino. I didn't expect the drop in your guard in the first fight. Also didn't expect you to know about elemental affinities, or how to utilize them in combat," he praised her, trying to limit the amount of praise he gave her. It wasn't that it would go to her head, but more of not wanting to give other people the idea he was favoring her over his teammates, even if he knew they wouldn't think that.

"So you think I'm ready for the Chuunin exams?" she asked hopefully. Her demeanor around Naruto changed as often as his did around, one minute she could be at his throat while the next minute she would be sympathetic towards him, and offer him comfort. It often kept her up at night, thinking, about how much her life had changed since meeting him, how he helped her keep sane throughout their Academy years, and how she kept him from avoiding his friends by constantly training.

"You need a bit more training, to be honest. Mostly on using your element, and maybe a bit less reliance on taking hits to get past your enemies guard. Not everyone will react to the same tactic twice, so only use it if there's no other choice. Other than that, you're progressing at a good rate, and probably could ace the exam with enough extra training," Naruto told her, standing up from his sitting position to continue his own training as Ino bid him farewell after thanking him for the tips.

As Naruto stood atop the lake, unmoving, he let his senses drift away as he focused his chakra on the water beneath his feet, opening his eyes and watching the reflections on the water swirl and take on the image of one of his memories. It was a relatively pointless technique to the brunette, and other ninjas, as he could manipulate the image into whatever he wanted to which made it impossible to take as a solid piece of evidence. However he found it allowed one to relive memories, even if they were false and created by the user of the technique, something he found himself using when no one was around, to either recall vital details of a fight, or to enjoy a certain event once again.

As the memory materialized beneath his feet, he became aware of three individuals approaching him from fifty yards away, attempting to sneak up on him using Chuunin-level stealth-techniques though they weren't aware of Naruto's ability to easily detect hidden foes. He didn't move however, from his spot on the lake, instead watching the memory take shape as it played out a memory, or rather a recollection, of his second date with Ino, during which she 'kidnapped' him and brought him to the same lake where they enjoyed a picnic and an afternoon of relative silence and peace.

When the trio arrived near the edge of the lake, Naruto remained on the lake, this time watching a memory of the first full day the two had spent together as a couple, in their apartment. He didn't know it at the time, but Tsunade had arranged for them to have the same day off, and more or less told Ino to spend the day off with him, and off the streets of Konoha. Ino later found out that it was the anniversary of the day Jiraiya had died, and Tsunade felt Naruto should stay home even if he was over his mentors death.

Reflecting whilst on the lake made Naruto realized that Tsunade had done more for him than he initially gave her credit for, mostly because he admitted he was rather dim-witted after returning from his training mission, and it took two years for him to start to take thing seriously. Now, he realized that Tsunade would be a much-needed asset for when he decided to go after Akatsuki and the Sound seriously, mostly due to her rank and skills as a Sannin but also because of her charisma as a leader. Even if she didn't have the experience of being a Hokage in this dimension, it was a necessity for inspiring and helping weaker ninja in realizing their potential and helping them defeat the two foes.

As he stood on the lake, he was vaguely aware of the trio saying something to him, though he ignored it as he watched another memory materialize on the waters surface, this time of the last night he spent with Ino before Konoha was attacked and pillaged by Madara. The night was relatively uneventful in itself. They spent the day helping Kurenai around the village and getting her son ready for the Ninja Academy, then spent the night discussing Ino's wanting of children. Of course she wasn't going to hound Naruto about having children, not right away anyways, due to the still-looming threat of Akatsuki, but wanted to have kids a few years after Akatsuki was defeated.

Thinking back on it, Naruto realized she wasn't being subtle about wanting to be married, though he felt she was at the time. It was apparent she had set her sights on being "Uzumaki Ino" after three years of dating Naruto, but was in no rush of getting the knot tied as they were often too busy to spend even a few hours together, usually splitting their time between training, or missions. At first they were despaired at not being able to see one another, but got used to the hectic schedule of their work as a ninja and eventually embraced it.

"...-im, Michako," one of the voices, a male judging from the tone, ordered one of the people in the trio. Michako, which Naruto deduced to be a female judging from her tone of acknowledgment, walked out onto the water in a slow pace, in an attempt to sneak up on him, as they assumed he was oblivious to what was happening. When she was five feet from him the image on the water shifted, though what lay before her shocked her enough to jump off the water and back onto solid ground.

What lay on the lake surface was a scene that the trio didn't know about, though it haunted Naruto even to this day. The scene of death, destruction, and carnage in Konoha after Madara attacked it was something that kept Naruto focused on his goal of attacking the Akatsuki, reminding him of what would happen if he let the man run amok for too long. The other two members of the trio noticed the image and were noticeably disturbed at the scene, and more so at Naruto's lack of visible emotion towards the scene, though he kept his anger and fury tempered beneath his physical self.

"We're charged with taking you to the Uzukage, Uzumaki Naruto. Come with us peacefully, we don't wish to harm you," the lead male, the one who had ordered Michako, stated in a peaceful tone. The other two looked skeptical between the lead male and Naruto, unsure of what Naruto would do. Rumors thrived in the world of shinobi, and the boy was supposedly strong for his age, which was why the Uzukage had sent the strongest shinobi he had with him, confident they could bring the boy in.

"What's he want with me?" Naruto asked simply, not moving from his spot on the water though the image had faded into another, this time of Konan before he had started dating Ino officially. It was shortly after she had arrived in Konoha, and had spent most of the day being shown around by Naruto, though she had chosen him as her guide, citing 'I want to see how Minato's kid has grown' as her reason. The day had gone by without much event, aside from Konan outright threatening those who treated Naruto like dirt, and almost gutting Konohamaru when had called her 'an old hag'. To date it was his most enjoyable memories, simply for the fact Konan had risked being labeled a missing-nin after a single day for defending Naruto, which he tried to repay over the next five years.

"He wishes to talk to you regarding your lineage," the man replied hollowly, as though he were reciting the Kages words. Naruto's eyes narrowed at the sentence for a second before turning into a frown as he considered the Kages request. Naruto wasn't oblivious to his lineage, as it was one of the things he researched when he had the time, and knew that his mother was related to a number of the Kages in Whirlpool Country. What he didn't know, however, was why the Kage was interested in him, as his biological mother was supposed to have been killed five years before he was "born".

"Tell him I'm not interested," Naruto told the man, focusing on another memory, this time of a 'training session' with Konan. Except this training session was designed for both Naruto and Konan. And required a shocking lack of clothing. It also included a heaping dosage of whipped cream, though Naruto would admit that that was his idea. The trio looked on in interest, the males more interested in who the woman was while the female didn't know whether to look appalled or curious.

Just as quickly as the memory emerged, it faded to Naruto digging graves for each and every body he found in Konoha after it had been ravaged, forcing the trio to focus on Naruto and not his trip down memory lane.

"It wasn't a request, Uzumaki Naruto. We are to bring you in with force, if you were to deny the order to come in peacefully," he said, sliding into a fighting position while his allies did the same. Naruto remained on the water, unmoving, though the images on the lake faded as he prepared himself for their assault. It came without warning, the lead male unsheathing a standard-issue katana and aiming for his right arm in an attempt to wound him and make fighting back hard, but was surprised when the blade sunk into a _Mud Clone_, which quickly faded away, causing him to look for the brunette.

"You know, I really detest people who don't respect the wishes of others," Naruto called from the shore, a kunai aimed at Michako's neck while a clone repeated the same maneuver on the remaining male. "Leave me in peace, and you're friends won't die," he threatened, indicating he was serious about killing them by drawing blood which forced his hostages to stiffen in fear.

"Friends? Ha! They're underlings, charged to me because they're too weak to become a Jounin. Tetsuo there was recently promoted to Chuunin while Michako is happy with not leading a squad, and has decided to stay as a Chuunin. Both are too weak to be on their own however, and can be replaced if it means you're in the grasp in the Uzukage! I've heard rumors about you kid, about how you managed to best an Akatsuki trainee, but didn't kill him. If it had been me I would have gutted him like a fish, as an example, but why don't you kill those two, to break your 'cherry' so to speak? It would do well for you to get used to the sight of blood and feeling of killing someone, as the Uzukage has plans-URK!" he was interrupted mid-sentence by Naruto disappearing and gripping him tightly by the throat, preventing him from speaking and giving him just enough air to breath.

"Listen to me **very **carefully, shit-for-brains. And you better commit it to memory because I'm only going to tell you this once. I'm not joining you, or your Uzukage. Approach me about joining him again, and your 'underlings' will be the one to feel my...displeasure. I know you're wondering what I mean by your 'underlings' suffering my wrath, and well, I feel I teach better through example than through words," Naruto snarled sadistically, squeezing his hands tighter around the mans throat and watching as he tried to struggle and escape, while trying to kick Naruto and force him to drop him.

It wasn't meant to be however, as Naruto dropped the sadistic look on his face, adopting one of seriousness, "You made a grave mistake, threatening your teammates and treating them like shit. You'll find I take that very seriously, and sadly, you get to find out what happens to those who do so in my presence," with a swift move his nails dug into the mans throat and he cleanly removed his larynx, dropping his body and watching distantly as he struggled with his last breaths before sinking to the lake-bed, tainting the lakes water color an ugly purple.

Cleaning his hand of blood, Naruto walked calmly to the shore, sitting in front of the mans shocked teammates, who could barely comprehend how easily Naruto had killed the man and was unaffected by it. When they overcame the shock they looked at him uneasily, though Naruto made no move towards them.

"I'm not going to bite you, you know. I only attacked him because he treated you like garbage, and those who treat allies like trash are lower than trash," he recited from heart, having heard the saying numerous times from Kakashi over the years. They still looked uneasy around him but Naruto noticed their hands didn't drift towards their weapons as they did a minute ago.

"I wish to ask you about something he said. I obviously can't ask him because he's dead, but I don't regret killing him. Ninjas like him never give up information without extensive torture, and I never had a stomach for it. Plus, it'd look suspicious as hell if I dragged him into the interrogators office right this moment," Naruto explained, watching them remain wary of him but made no move towards escaping.

"So, tell me what you know of this 'Akatsuki trainee', and where you got the information," the dimension-hopper ordered, watching the two shift nervously and ask one another who would tell him about it.

Dusk set in quickly, following the meeting with the trio-turned-duo from Whirlpool, and Naruto sat on the lake's surface, meditating on it and trying to ignore the body floating in the water below him. He was truthful in that he didn't regret killing the man, but he didn't wish to indulge in sadistic treatment of foes, since they could easily turn out to become an ally in the future and he didn't wish to force a grudge onto someone.

A sudden shift in the wind made him jump from his position on the lake, narrowly avoiding a gust of wind that sliced where he had sat seconds earlier. Landing yards away on the surface, he focused his senses on trying to find where they were, mentally telling his diversion _Shadow Clones_ to fan out and find where they were but not to engage them. No doubt they had a skilled long-range ninja, which would make it easy to keep his clones at bay, but not him. There was more than one way of fighting a long-range ninja, besides getting up close and personal with them.

The humid air gave him a reprieve, forcing him to roll to the side to avoid another attack, this time from a small ninja but clearly skilled in taijutsu judging from how often he switched stances. Whoever they were, they were skilled. Naruto doubted they were stronger than him, but with unknown skills it could be a close fight, if he was careless. Regardless of numbers, teamwork, and strength, you would always lose to someone with more skill, as they often knew how to counter-act your tactics before you did.

A scent gave away the next attack, reminding him of a weasel but he paid it no attention as he avoided it's claws, noting this weasel was the size of a large dog, and looked more rabid as well. Instead of dodging it he punched it hard enough to cause it to dissipate, rubbing his hand afterwards due to the toughness of the weasel's fur. The user of the weasel stepped out a pair of bushes a couple of yards to his left, making Naruto turn to face him, eyes widening slightly in shock at who it was.

"What the hell do you want?" he snapped, not having a good feeling about their presence. He expected them to be different, yes, but not so much as he'd expect them to hunt him down and attack him at first notice. It didn't sit well, and he doubted it was without premeditation. Their systematic, coordinated attack indicated they had been planning this for a while, and he had to stay on his toes to make sure they didn't pull a fast one.

"A fight," he said simply, hands flying through seals, making Naruto rush him in an attempt to prevent it. The boys comrades leaped at Naruto, who dodged the taijutsu user's kick, but couldn't avoid another gust of wind from the unseen third user. If his body had been under-trained it would caused a significant amount of damage to him, but as it was he was able to cushion the blow by attempting to twist in mid-air in an attempt to avoid it, but only softened the blow by dumb luck. The boy had finished his string of seals seconds earlier, and behind him stood a bear that looked to be well over ten feet in height.

"Shit," Naruto muttered as he avoided a claw swipe from the bear. The damage was mostly dealt to his legs when he tried to avoid the wind-blast, and as such it made jumping or even walking truly painful, but he ground his teeth in an attempt to get away. If he stayed, no doubt he would have to use one of his trump cards, and whichever one he used it would pose questions from others, questions he didn't have legitimate answers for at the current moment. So until he could come up with a plan, or his body repaired the extensive muscle damage to his legs, he would have to run and pray he ran into a patrol or someone else training. If he was lucky he could run into a teammate, or even Konan, but he doubted he would be that lucky, so he ran as fast as he could manage without falling flat on his face.

He knew he was running away from Konoha, but at the current moment, all he could hope for was to stumble across one of the roads leading out of Konoha, and run into a team getting back from a mission, Genin or otherwise. It seemed the fates were smiling cruelly upon him however, as he tripped over a root and fell flat on his face, while his pursuers were quick to jump upon him and ensure he wouldn't move by sitting on him. Humiliating and demeaning, yes, but he wouldn't be moving for a while. Plus, he rather liked the comfort of the third ninjas underside on his back.

"The stories don't do you justice, Uzumaki Naruto," the lead ninja stated obviously. Naruto simply grumbled his displeasure but didn't attempt to get away. They were keeping him from moving, and his legs were slowly healing, too slow for him to be moving in the next couple of minutes. He would probably have to stall for time, but he had no problem with that as he could keep them busy with seal-less Genjutsu if he was desperate enough, but he wasn't ready to show that little trick just yet.

"And what stories have you heard?" he asked, wondering what it was that drove everyone to him today. First Ino with wanting training, and ending up with a pleasant eyeful, then the Whirlpool team and ending up with a dead body, and now this team and ending up laying on the ground while an attractive girl sat on him.

"You have not heard them?" the intruder asked, surprised.

"No one tells me a fucking thing nowadays," it was a lie, but Naruto felt his attacker didn't need to know that.

"They say that you fought a member of Akatsuki and defeated him single-handedly," he explained to Naruto, who started to feel movement in his legs. Only another minute of stalling and he could get the jump on them, though he couldn't see the third, small member. Was probably out of his line of sight, or could just be standing behind him, or he could not be in the small clearing. It didn't matter to Naruto either way, since he was going to show them that you don't simply get the drop on Uzumaki Naruto and expect to get away untouched.

"He wasn't a member of Akatsuki, just a lackie. And I was able to overpower him, yeah, but because he didn't what I was capable of," Naruto admitted, wondering how else he could stall them. He only needed another thirty seconds, and then he could be up and kicking ass, but how? "So you guys just wanted to fight me to see how you matched up? Is that it? No secret plan on using me as an informant for Hidden Sand or something like that?"

"No, no ulterior motive."

"It's a shame, really. I mean, if you **did** have an ulterior motive, I would have let you guys off without incident, but since you admitted to attacking me unprovoked just to prove your strength, I feel obligated to show what it's really like to fight me," without warning he replaced himself with a branch across the clearing, leaning against a tree in dramatic fashion. He watched the two sitting on him falling a short distance to the ground, and kept an eye, ear, and nose out for the third member, who attempted to get the jump on him but found himself being thrown across the clearing easily.

"Now that my legs are healed, you three should give me a good workout. Just don't hold back, as I could probably kill you with a single attack," he taunted, getting into a fighting stance while the three readied themselves for combat.

A/N: The Chuunin Exam is right around the corner with this chapter done, and a bit is shown that foreshadows future events. Most of what was mentioned will have a serious impact on future chapters, but it's a secret in what ways they'll impact them. ; ) Review responses follow this A/N.

Toki Mirage: Whoops, somehow me and my beta both overlooked that. Will fix that issue and reupload the chapter soon to fix it. Thanks for pointing it out though. )

Hiroshima Namikaze: He didn't leave of his own free-will, but was rather kidnapped at a young age.

Failing Mentality: What kind of discrepencies did you notice? My beta (and myself by proxy) might have overlooked some plotholes, though I try to keep them to a minimum by going over previous chapters and rereading them, fixing any mistakes I notice.

To everyone else who reviewed, thank you. I really appreciate the reviews I get, since it means someone reads this ).


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: A bit behind schedule, as I intended to post it on Monday but kept getting distracted. This chapter is a significant departure from previous chapters, as it's told entirely from Naruto's point of view. Mostly did this because I wanted to show some of Naruto's hidden characteristics, and help explain some things regarding his personality. Also, I wrote this because it's the only draft that lasted more than 3 pages, and is the 12th draft of this chapter and the only one I liked. No action either, as it's primarily a character-development chapter with only a little bit of plot progression. Finally, I'm still looking for a new beta, with my current one caught up in college and no time to discuss ideas and fix writing. So if you're interested, let me know and we can figure something out.

Summary of last chapter: A month following the fight with Akatsuki, Naruto prepares for the Chuunin exam, and is visited by two teams who have a significant interest in him. After dispatching of one team, he found himself ambushed by another, but managed to escape with his life. What will the fallout of his show of power bring? And can he protect himself from the fallout?

---

_One week later; Naruto's point of view_

I lay awake in my bed, staring blankly at my ceiling waiting for my alarm to go off. All those years of hard training and life or death situations must have really paid off, if I can awaken five minutes before my alarm goes off. Truly the sign of a great ninja. I wonder if Kakashi ever thought the same thing? If you get so strong that you begin to wonder if all that training was for naught.

It's kept me up a couple of times at night, mostly when I was back home, or rather in my home dimension, as I only began to think such things after Madara destroyed Konoha and killed the ones I loved. I'd wonder what life would have been like if I flunked the Academy a third time, and was deemed too useless to become a decent shinobi. Would I have taken it with the grace and guile I had as a child? Would I have slumped into a depression and try to figure out how to remedy the situation? Would I have gotten so miserable that I'd be willing to kill myself? Or would I have run away?

A sharp blaring noise interrupts my line of thought, earning a groan. It's always something. If I get out of bed before my alarm goes off, something bad happens during the course of the day. If I take my sweet time, I interrupt time that could be spent dwelling on the mysteries of the universe. God, I'm beginning to sound like Shika, always bitching about every little thing. Only difference is, I'm doing it in the safe confines of my mind. Though, I doubt that's a good sign of mental health, when you start to hold conversations with yourself that no one can hear. Except that damned fox, who I haven't heard a peep from in years.

I wonder if he's still in that seal? Part of me would make me believe he is, as the seal is infallible. But the other part makes me wonder if he escaped. I remember asking Jiraiya about the seal years ago, thought it seemed like a lifetime ago. It was shortly before he was killed by Pein, when I asked him if the Kyuubi could ever escape or be extracted by the Akatsuki, to which Jiraiya said that he didn't know. The Yondaime, as Jiraiya never revealed my heritage to me and thus never revealed his name to me, never told anyone how to replicate the seal, as he didn't want to give unsavory people the knowledge to undo all he tinkered and toiled over.

It seemed selfish at the time, but I realize now that it was the only way he could be sure the Kyuubi wouldn't escape. I also recall Jiraiya talking about seals while we were training for those long three years, and how seals only worked on things with chakra. At the time it had no bearing on reality, as I only cared about four things at the time; getting Sasuke back, Sakura-chan, Ramen, and training. But now, I recall something the Kyuubi had told me while I was in isolation and waiting for my chance to start over anew. He told me that all his remaining chakra had been used up to transport me to the 'Dimension Between Dimensions', and that I had the equivalent to ten Kakashi's in terms of chakra reserves. And considering the man once kept a _Goukakyuu_ burning for three days straight before running dangerously low on chakra, that meant a lot to me.

As I slip out of my night-clothes, a pair of shorts and a simple tank-top to take my daily shower, my mind wanders to the first time I took the Chuunin Exam. I admit I was ill-prepared, in retrospect, but at that time I thought I could take on all three Sannin and win through sheer determination and half-assed tricks. Now that I know different however, I realize I wouldn't have changed it a bit, as I enjoyed the relative peace and tranquility even if I was a massive pain in the ass for my teacher and teammates and friends.

I wonder how this Chuunin Exam will be. Will the Sound team still hunt us down to kill the competition? Will Orochimaru show his ugly mug again? Is Konoha going to be attacked and overrun by the snake and his lackies? The last thought seems like a joke, considering the Sound only won last time due to Konoha's seriously undermanned military. Now however, Konoha could stomp the Sound underfoot, even if Orochimaru got the Sand to back him. But it doesn't sit well, the thought of us getting attacked during the Chuunin Exam. Call me a pessimist, but I have a bad feeling about this Exam that I can't shake. I've been getting these weird dreams, that bear a striking resemblance to Konoha after Madara attacked it, except I don't recall the Sound being part of his forces. Sure, Orochimaru was used as an informant for the man on potential S-ranked ninja to be considered for Akatsuki, but Orochimaru had been dead for four years when he attacked, and the Sound had been dismantled for three years.

Maybe it's one of the subconscious things that Ino tried to explain to me once. Some guy named Freud blabbed on about a subconscious merging bits of reality with bits of your innermost desires. But is it true? Do I want Konoha destroyed? Do I want Akatsuki to kill my loved ones again? Last time, we got by on sheer luck, always avoiding a fatal blow when it came to information about the whereabouts of Akatsuki members. We'd always hustle to get a quick team together and ambush them, often killing them while losing a member or two due to fatigue.

Now however, we haven't heard a single thing about them outside of when we ran into Itachi and Shino. And even then, that was dumb luck of being in the wrong place at the right time. It took all my willpower to not chase Itachi down after he escaped from Konan. I could have caught up to him in a minute, but I didn't because I couldn't believe that Shino had joined Akatsuki. Did he join willingly? Was he strong-armed into it? I couldn't answer the questions then, and I can't do it now. I always despise not having the right answer, as I'm supposed to be 'the prodigy' of the class, and every time I can't answer something directly, it makes me realize I'm not all I'm cracked up to be.

Yes, I realize that I am a prodigy in the general sense of the word. I like to consider twenty-eight years of life experiences as a good tutor for the shit that goes down in life, and it's made me intelligent beyond my perceived years. And my skill helps compliment my way of thinking, sporadic but satisfying when something goes right. I may know jack shit when it comes to the intricacies of Genjutsu, but I know how to detect them, as well as be able to tell if they're bluffing about the sword in their hand.

I guess every prodigy isn't perfect, just look at Itachi. ANBU Captain at thirteen, and goes fucking ape-shit on his parents because of their involvement in Root, Danzo, Orochimaru, the Sound, and the Akatsuki. Then again, if I found out my family was involved in those strange bedfellows, I'm pretty sure I too would have killed 'em all, except I would have gone one step further and hang them out for the world to see.

As I step out of the shower, I look at my reflection in the mirror, appreciating the growth my body's undergone with my extreme training. While my body is a far cry from a professional bodybuilder or what it was in my home dimension, it's well built. More muscle than I would prefer, which will no doubt slow me down in future fights, but I'm not so vain as to get lazy to sculpt a 'perfect' body. Granted, I take great pride in my looks, but it's mostly because I don't have the stigma of publicly being a Jinchuuriki. I say mostly, because I know a lot of older girls and women have been staring at me, even if they thought they were being discreet and subtle, and I must admit I enjoy the attention.

I guess it comes from years of being around a vain Konan and not-very-modest Ino, both of whom had no problem with taking advantage of my comical situations and exploiting them. Konan and Ino.... Those are two women I find myself conflicted on, time and again. Before Konoha was destroyed, I spent most of my free time divided between those two. Ino because we were dating and shared an apartment, Konan because I was the only person who talked to her outside of missions. She wouldn't admit it, even if she was close to passing out from being too drunk, but Konan was lonely. I didn't need to talk to her to realize that, as her body language gave it away like bright colors in the forest. You can hide your heart, but you can't hide your body, even though she tried hard to hide her body.

It wasn't uncommon for her to be drinking herself into a stupor and shift uncomfortably in her chair, trying to keep her instincts in the forefront of her mind, and keep the alcohol from making her spill her heart. To put it into perspective, Konan once beat Tsunade-baa-chan in a heated glare-contest, which is saying a lot as the old bat could scare even Itachi shitless, if she was given the chance of course. I often wondered if I should ask her why she was fidgeting so much, but always decided not to in the end, either saying it wasn't my place, or wasn't important. Now however, I regret not asking her what was on her mind. It could have given me better insight into her psyche, and helped me understand her better as a person.

As I leave my apartment, my mind drifts to our 'relationship'. On the outside, we acted as too uncaring people. Or rather, I tried to act while Konan made up for my ineptitude by acting too heartless. If I was given one word to describe our relationship, I'd have to settle on 'mindfuckinglycomplicated'. Well, it doesn't count as one word, but when you're so drunk you start making out with a wooden chair while two other very attractive women are in the room, it seems like it. Konan would often drag me kicking and screaming out of a training session to spend time with me, which I felt was touching until I realized her idea of 'spending time' was getting drunk and drilling me for questions about my relationship with Ino.

Tact wasn't exactly a word in her dictionary whilst drunk, but she would often give me advice that surprisingly worked on my blonde girlfriend, though Ino would get suspicious if I tried something questionable. I wonder at times, if she had any suspicion about how close Konan and I were. No doubt she had a feeling about it when I would come home with alcohol comprising seventy percent of my blood with no real explanation besides 'getting plastered with Konan because she insisted/threatened me'. If she had asked, I don't doubt in my mind that I would have told that yes, I had had sex with Konan a number of times while I was dating her. And I regretted it because I knew I wasn't that kind of person, but I was conflicted because I couldn't leave Konan to her own devices.

While I knew she wouldn't make a selfish move like suicide, it scared me how someone like her could continue to live despite having no real motivation. I knew she thought of me as a surrogate son, or even a little brother, but she often admitted it was because I reminded her of my father, who she had never gotten over. She admitted it was selfish to keep me around as a simple lay, and because I reminded her of a lost loved one, but she was too vain, too headstrong to not accept it and move on. I've wondered often, if this Konan is the same, if she would act similar to the Konan I knew and loved if Minato died. But I realize it's not my place anymore. I look too young to become anything more than a student to her, and for that I'm glad. I have too much on my plate to juggle another emotionally unstable ice-queen on my hands, even if it's just reliving my previous experience again.

I take my time wandering the barren streets of Konoha. The Exam starts at 9:00AM sharp, and it was only 7:00AM, so I had two hours to kill time until I met my team. When I first got here, I often wondered who would be on my team. Would I have another chance at Team 7? Would I be on a completely original team with two people I never met before? Would it be a mix of the two? My thoughts were fueled even more with giddiness that came with knowing what I was, as they wouldn't be biased towards me as I wouldn't spend my time pulling pranks for attention. I would simply be myself and spend extra time bettering myself to meet any large adversary's.

Shika and Sakura wanted to train with me the last week, but I kept putting them off, often telling them to take a week to recuperate because the Chuunin Exam would make their previous training look like a breeze. While not an outright lie, it did the job in keeping them off my back while I debated on what to do about the Uzukage. Only three days ago they drug out the body of the Jounin I had ripped the throat out of, and the rumors were rampant, often pointing to a missing-nin that intended to kill the Uzukage, and that Jounin was his first victim.

Others included a secret sect of Konoha ANBU that intended on strong-arming Whirlpool Country into joining an alliance comprising of other smaller countries on the outskirts of Fire Country, and Fire Country itself. The last one made me laugh when I heard it, as they wouldn't need to strong-arm Whirlpool into joining Fire, as we have enough forces to make them part of us without much effort. It made the store-keeper look at me in confusion, but I waved it off, stating I was reminiscing of a joke I heard earlier that week.

I arrive at the building that's housing the first part of the Exam, and take note of the time on the clock posted above the door. It reads 8:00AM, making me debate whether or not I want to wander the town some more or simply wait for my team to get here. I decide on the latter, finding a soft spot on the ground and sit there, back against the wall, head tilted down in an attempt to get some extra sleep. Five minutes of futilely trying to tell my body to sleep ends in me sighing, and deciding to idly manipulate the earth around me.

It's a simple chakra training technique, to use the earth to mold shapes without touching them though to an outsider it looks hard and complicated. You use chakra as you would a pair of hands, and through them create whatever you wish, whether it be a kunai, shuriken, anything. Opting for a fond memory, the chakra races invisibly across the clump of earth in my hands, erratically molding sections and giving the impression of a disfigured statute. In reality it is simply the way my mind works, according to Ino anyways.

We had been dating for three years, and she had been looking for methods on refining her clans techniques. However, knowledge on the human mind was rather low in quality texts, and even the ones that were well-versed in psychology didn't help her in the way she thought. So, she declared that I would become her guinea pig, and after some debating on the terms of letting me be experimented on, I agreed. She had told me that the human mind typically came across as a room with many doors, all leading to memories but one never knew what kind until they opened a door, and that she might see something I didn't want to tell her right away, but I told her I wouldn't hold it against her if she saw something she wasn't supposed to.

Suffice to say, she was shocked when she found the 'room' was really a field, the memories stored in gusts of wind that drifted through the field as opposed to 'doors'. She told me later that she spent five minutes just watching the wind blow here and there. Initially she thought that the memories would blow through in a set order, but after seeing a memory drift by three times in a minute, an inconsequential memory of us together, she realized that my thought pattern was free and sporadic, much like the wind. After that one time, her research took a different approach, this one focusing on personalities and their effect on elemental affinities, something I realized was dedicated to me, even if it was off-handed.

I watched as the last detail was smoothed down, and smiled fondly at the mini-statute of Ino in my hand. The memory was similar to a recollection of my last training session with her, except she was noticeably older and a lot more devious when it came to getting me to do things with her, usually involving the promise of very enticing sex in the most unusual positions. And being as I was a young man with hot-blood, I was quick to agree because I wasn't going to deny the chance to have sex with Ino, not in a million years. Call me a typical guy, but I never turned down the offer of sex from Ino or Konan, considering they were more than willing to 'do the deed' so to say, and even propositioned me a number of times. Now that I thought about it, Konan seemed just as devious as Ino, but rarely had a reason to use it due to her never having anything to do outside of missions besides getting smashed.

As I continue to admire my handiwork, I realize that a number of other teams have arrived at the building, and a couple of them were staring at me and my show of skill in awe. Mentally shrugging it off, I stand up and do a few stretches to rid myself of the stiffness in my joints, and idly looked over to the clock above the door, which read 8:45AM, making me realize I had spent more time reminiscing than I initially thought but paid it no attention. I managed to pass forty-five minutes by just sitting, a first for me.

I'm by no means an impatient person, or not as impatient as I was growing up, but I usually end up getting bored and wandering around, looking for something to keep me entertained. This time, I didn't need anything but my own mind to keep entertained which I guess is an improvement, even if I don't know how much of one it is. I lean against the wall where I sat for forty-five minutes, waiting for either the door to open, or my team to show up, whichever came first.

Luckily, my team decided to show up, both looking noticeably tired but I didn't mention it. I knew they were overly nervous for the Exam, and I couldn't exactly blame them. I couldn't sleep the night of the Exam, afraid I'd end up failing and unable to pass the Genin rank on my path to Hokage.

Now however....I'm indifferent. Pass or fail, it doesn't bother me. If for some inexplicable reason I'm barred from progressing past the Genin rank, I'll just leave town and become either a mercenary or a missing-nin. No doubt my rank would be a low one, but it wouldn't bother me if I had to kill a Hunter-Nin or two or six, to get across the fact I wasn't going back.

It seems like a selfish and half-cocked plan, but it makes sense in my mind. I pride myself on not caring what my rank is, or what the rank of my enemies are. I'll deal with them the best way I know how, even if it causes everyone to hate me in the end. I doubt it'd come to that however. It'd take a massive fuck-up on my end for them to revoke my rank, and I like to think that I've improved from making large fuck-ups left and right.

Sakura looks worried, but I don't say anything. Despite training together for months, I feel that I really don't know the girl. I've picked up on a few quirks, like her naivety when it comes to relationships and my work ethic, but I feel that we're merely acquaintances, making me want to kick myself mentally. I could make excuses that she hasn't approached me about getting to knowing me better personally, but I realize that I'm not always the most approachable person.

It might be because I tend to take things seriously, what with the fate of the world resting on my shoulders and whatnot, or it might be because of my unusual personality, switching from nice and understanding to cold and heartless at the drop of a hat. I tell myself mentally to take her out to lunch, after the second test in the Exam, to get to know her better. That's what Ino would have told me anyways, even if she doesn't exactly like Sakura.

Shika looks tired, but then he always looks tired when I see him. Probably has to do with him taking more initiative in his training, but I wasn't going to press him about it if it was something else, something more personal. I admit I know just as much about him as I do Sakura, but I feel our relationship is different. He trusts me implicitly, and I him, even though we don't talk as much as we did during our Academy years.

Maybe I've grown anti-social since I graduated? It seems that all I do is train, and talk with Ino. Even then, she only shows up every few weeks, bugging me to teach her something to prove she's not weak to her other teammates. I know I should take it easy on my training, but I can't help but feel bad for putting off my training to spend time with friends. It's arrogant to think that training is more important than my friends, but I often feel like the weird kid when I'm with them. Like I belong, but at the same time I don't. It's confusing, how they're all the friends I spent time with growing up the first time around, but I feel weird being around them a second time around. They look exactly like my friends, but underneath their skin and organs, I know they're not.

I consider it a cruel joke, to be presented with something I really want, but only to realize it's not what I thought it would be like when I dreamt it up. It's not the first time I had wished I had started over, as I'm sure everyone has felt they wished things turned out differently at one point in their life. However, I was able to make it happen, and the feeling is bittersweet. I wanted a fresh slate, to start a new life with new friends, and I got that, only to realize that it wasn't what I wanted. I guess I wanted to both remember and forget the happy times I had with my original friends, the best of both worlds, selective memory and feelings.

I realize I started drifting away from reality, as I've been staring at Sakura for a unknown amount of time which made her nervous, and look up at the clock again, this time reading 9:01AM. The teams gathered at the door are entering while my team is hanging back, but I quickly make my way through the crowd while Sakura and Shika follow in my wake. Let someone get pissed at me entering the building first, I'm in need of an opportunity to release some pent up stress.

I see a classroom labeled "201", and wonder for a minute why there's a large group of Genin fighting with a pair of other Genin, before realizing the Genjutsu from my first Chuunin Exam. A quick manipulation of chakra in my eyes reveals the classroom is indeed labeled as "201" and the others are reading it as "301", as the Genjutsu was intended to do. I scoff visibly and walk past the group, heading for the stairs before being stopped by the pair of Genin.

I lazily dodge Kotetsu's kick, wondering why him and Izumo would attack me. Their 'test' was to deny entry into the classroom, which was the wrong room to begin with, and anyone who could get past the test would 'pass'. Since I forewent making a dramatic scene about it being the wrong room, I assumed I had passed but it seemed that I would have to make a scene to pass this little test, much to my displeasure.

Izumo tried to sneak up on my exposed back, but found himself unable to move due to Shika trapping him with his _Shadow Bind_ while I half-heartedly blocked Kotetsu's Taijutsu barrage until I grew tired of his futile efforts at hitting me. After which I put more effort into blocking a punch and used the force to press him against the stairwell wall.

"Do I pass your 'test'? Or shall I continue making a fool of you?" I taunt, watching him fidget in discomfort. No doubt he and Izumo wouldn't hear the end of the 'you got your ass kicked by a pair of twelve year olds' story for months to come, as he reluctantly nods and I release him, albeit roughly. Noting that the group of Chuunin potentials had been watching the fight since it had started, I scoffed again and walked up the stairwell, knowing Shika and Sakura would trail behind as they always did.

When I got to the real classroom "301", I noticed that I was the first person there, but didn't let it bother me. No doubt everyone downstairs would follow me and my team, but it made me feel less interested in the Chuunin Exam since it would mean less capable people for me to fight when it came down to it. I initially toyed with the idea of holding back in most of my fights, but decided against the idea. Not only was it distasteful, it would make me look like a damned fool if the person I fought against was also holding back for the same reason I would. No, it was better to fight using what skills I had shown, and only use new ones when the situation arose.

Slowly the room filled with the Genin who had followed me after my show of force against Kotetsu, all looking to see where I resided, sitting against a wall while Shika and Sakura stood, trying to quell their nervousness but failing.

"Don't worry about the test. We'll do fine, even if I have to force the teacher to let us pass the first test," I told them confidently, watching them ease up noticeably but still nervous. It would have to do, as Ibiki entered the room and shouted to shut up so he could get on with his day.

"Now I've heard that a few of you were fighting before entering this room, which is against the rules as you should know. And if you don't, well I hope you didn't have plans on passing this exam because you're disqualified if you fight without my authorization. So who was it that fought without my authorization?" Ignoring the fact that no one knew about that little rule, even I barely remembered it from my first go ahead, this little turn of events would be interesting to watch unfold.

Would someone single me out and get my team disqualified? What would be the accusers punishment? I have no doubt in my mind that Ibiki is as sadistic as the stories lead on, so he'll probably make them regret pipping up. I wonder how **I** will take this disqualification? Will I use some intimidation, taught by Ino-chan, to put him in his place? Take it with grace and admittance that I should have kept a cool head? Point out that I didn't start the fight and didn't actually fight, but rather defended myself? All three have their pluses and minuses, but I think I'll wait to see who points me out to figure out my suitable response.

As I watch the crowd slowly, a inconsequential team from Whirlpool points me out, stating that I was the one who fought in the hall minutes earlier. It still doesn't answer my unspoken question on how I will take my 'punishment', but the day is still young that I can put Ibiki in his place even if he doesn't deserve it. While I don't honestly know the man, as torture was never my forte, I don't think it'd be fair for my team to be disqualified because someone got their panties in a wad and decided to attack me unprovoked.

"Team Whirlpool is disqualified," a simple sentence, that held the power the world over for other teams. It confused most everyone in the room, except the disguised Chuunin teams and myself, as I could come up with a number of reasons why they were disqualified. One could be that he was biased against Whirlpool for whatever reason. Another could be they broken another unknown rule. And he could have just chosen them because there was too many teams and they were convenient. A brown-haired boy with average looks whined about why he was being disqualified as he didn't do anything wrong. Ibiki promptly put him in his place.

"If you had said nothing, no one would have been punished. If this was a mission, the air of suspicion could cause a target of assassination to become extremely paranoid, and he could end up trusting the wrong person. You pointed out the 'assassin', but who could vouch that he was or was not an assassin? If someone supported the idea of him being one, it might be the real assassin using him as a scapegoat, or just someone with a vendetta against him. If someone didn't support the idea of him being one, no one would know the truth. For all I know, you could be the one to start the fight in the hall, and just picked him out as a inconsequential scapegoat, or it could have been deliberate finger-pointing. Either way, you're team fails, so get out of here," he lectured, making me smirk at the cleverness of the ploy.

It was genius, in my mind, as it rang of those old murder-mystery novels 'my' Sakura enjoyed, since Ibiki was right. If they had said nothing, no one could be punished properly. Ibiki knew I had fought in the halls, but wouldn't have singled me out since it would make his first request redundant. What was the point of asking for a murderer to step forward when you knew it was the whole time? Besides dramatic tension that was.

As Ibiki ordered them to sit at the desks provided and gave instructions on the test, I idly noted where the Chuunin were placed in the rows. While I could have easily aced the test without cheating, I felt that showing my true intelligence early wouldn't be a smart choice, since I could be forced into being promoted early. Not a bad thing in my mind, but I rather like doing things on my own accord, and not someone else's.

When he gave the order for us to take the tests, I did some subtle chakra manipulation, taking a leaf out of a puppeteer's book of tricks and attaching a strand of chakra to the pencil of one of the Chuunin, gripping my own pencil to give others the impression that I was taking the test by myself when in reality I letting him do the work for me. It took thirty dull minutes for me to finish the questions, thirty minutes wishing I could sleep while the pencil was still in my hand, but it wasn't possible. Anytime I went to sleep with a small object in my hand, I typically gripped it unconsciously, which hurt like hell when you wake up to find kunai-print scars on your palms. Makes it embarrassing to explain how they got there too.

Since the test had a limit of ninety minutes, I decided to try to catch some sleep, but again it would seem that I wouldn't be able to, not until later in the day it seemed, so I tried to think of what to expect in the Forest of Death. Orochimaru was a definite maybe, since I knew there was a Sound Genin team in this years Exam, but the member setup was different from the last one.

The last one had a guy who could use air as a weapon, a guy who used sound as a weapon, and a girl who used illusions. This one had the two guys, but instead of the illusion girl, it had a familiar red-head, Karin. She was one of Sasuke's fan girls in my home dimension, but took it to frightening degrees as she often kept his soiled bandages after they were replaced with clean ones.

However, her skill at tracking down ninja was second to none, and hopefully the same held true now. If so, I could....persuade her to join the Konoha to help track down Orochimaru and the Akatsuki, as her skills would be invaluable for assassinations, as her combat skills weren't half-bad either. Her looks weren't bad either, for a twelve year old at least, and I would admit she was very attractive the last time I had seen her, which was a few years before Konoha's downfall.

Maybe she could make for a good girlfriend, I thought, before realizing that we were twelve years old, physically at least, and she wasn't even part of the Leaf yet. I had no doubt I could get her to join the Leaf, even if I had to kidnap her and kill her teammates to keep them from telling Orochimaru where she was. Though she would probably have to go through the interrogation process to ensure she wasn't a double agent, but I could always convince Ibiki that wouldn't she need that, as I could easily keep her in line.

I shake myself out of my revere when I realize that the test has finished, and that I'm staring at the immodest body of Anko, who took it upon herself to 'wake' me up with two objects of desire. Everyone else seems to be staring at the immoral scene, but I pull my head out from her large cleavage and look her straight in the eye.

"Who the hell are you?" Redundant question, but since she is a Jounin that has never taken a team, it's best to play ignorant when regarding names. She looks at me strangely, probably expected me to get flustered over being so close to her womanly assets, but introduces herself properly ignoring everyone else in the room in the process.

"Uzumaki Naruto," I return the courtesy, not surprised when she says she didn't want to know my name. I decide to mess with her and send a message to everyone else in the room by replacing myself with a paper located on the instructors table, shocking everyone at the ease I disappeared and reappeared yards aways.

"I know you didn't want to know my name, but I felt it polite. Besides, I felt you should properly introduce yourself to everyone in the room, so they don't feel left out," it was a not-so-subtle jab and suggestion, but it caught the attention of Ibiki and Anko as well as the other Chuunin in the room. Ibiki looks shocked at my suggestion, as well as the skill I displayed replacing myself wordlessly. It's not a commonly-known skill, and even harder to perfect, but I managed after five years of diligent training.

Anko looks flushed at the idea of repeating her 'introduction' to every person in the room, but says nothing to me, instead ordering everyone outside to the entrance to the Forest of Death. As she leaves the room, she sends a heated glare towards me, giving me the impression she plans on continuing the conversation at a later date. I personally don't care, since I felt that saying it directly to her face would have ended up with me clutching my bleeding throat, but made a mental note to keep an eye out for snakes in the future. Then again, she could always just use her Jounin skills to sneak up on me, since I doubt it's the first time someone called her out to her face.

As I leave the room, I can't help but shake a feeling of deja vu, but ignore it, writing it off as simply reliving my first Chuunin exam experience, as most of it has happened more or less the same. And it would be the same if Orochimaru attacked Konoha....right?

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A/N: Not quite my longest chapter to date, but pretty damned close. Next chapter will kick up the plot progression a good amount, and Naruto'll be put through the ringer in a 3 vs 1 fight, to help show his limits in fighting. Review responses follow.

notBald: It was purely coincidence that Ino visited Naruto the day he was ambushed. The two teams in question (and yes, the 2nd team was the Sand trio) are above Genin-level, and thus it's easier to track individuals.

Aurora Ivy Fang: Yes, it is the Sand trio, with some not-so-obvious changes to their characters. But the change's will be more apparent in future chapters.

the grey mage: Explain how it doesn't make sense and I'll try to clear things up. I generally try to make it as readable as possible but I can only clear up so much without spoiling plot points.

To everyone else who reviewed: Thanks, as always. It's always nice to know that someone likes reading what I right, really.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Late again, as I'm well aware. Don't expect on-time updates or early, until I get a beta since they help speed up how fast I write and can churn out chapters. Used to take a week to churn out two chapters (one after another), but with no one to bounce ideas off of, it makes it harder to come up with chapters with logical premises. So, if you are interested, or want to see me update faster, speak up as I really like this story and despise how I'm behind on updates =(. Now that that little monologue is over, let me give a brief rundown of this chapter; it's the only chapter I've written so far that didn't require me to rewrite cause I didn't like it. Doesn't mean it's my best chapter, it's just the easiest I've had to write. It's told from one perspective, and is primarily an action chapter with a bit of dialogue. I tried to make the action as interesting as possible, mostly in an attempt to make Naruto seem human and possible to best in combat, but my original idea didn't pan out cause it didn't make sense. Enough of that, time for a recap of last chapter. Oh, and review responses at the end of the chapter, as you've come to expect.

Summary of last chapter: A month following his fateful fight with the Sand trio and a group of ninja from Whirlpool, Naruto prepares for the Chuunin Exam, and unintentionally ruffles a few feathers, forcing him to show a few aces up his sleeve in the process. What will result from his actions and how will they affect him?

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_Twenty minutes later_

Naruto strolled through the forest cautiously, an eye over his shoulder as he tried to piece together what had happened since he entered the Forest Of Death with his team.

He knew he shouldn't be surprised at being separated from them, but he couldn't help it. The last time he had been intentionally separated from them, it came in the form of a gust of wind, this time it came from a series of explosive notes, obviously a trap for whomever stumbled across them. Who that was Naruto didn't know, as he assumed Orochimaru would have more tact than a blatant trap but one never understood insanity's affect on people.

A fallen tree branch snapped underfoot, pausing Naruto in his journey towards the tower in the Forest. Whether he met up with his team before he got there was irrelevant, as he could just hope they had the common sense to go to the tower and leave him behind, to catch up when he could. Otherwise they'd fail and he wouldn't look forward to hearing how they failed because they didn't come up with a plan B in case one or more of them was separated.

Soft voices could be heard yards away, though Naruto noted they were muffled and hard to make out but manipulating the coils located near his ear-drums made it easier to listen in on their conversation. A simple technique, however it lost it's appeal against enemies of the Jounin rank as they would often use code to talk to allies, and unless one was informed of the meaning of the code words, it was pointless.

"-'ll take care of him, you two just make sure he doesn't get away," one voice, clearly male, ordered his other unseen teammates, Naruto instinctively running through angles of attack and his vulnerabilities. Two stood out to him, directly above, though it was pointless as avoiding attacks directly above him was as simple as stepping in any direction, and behind him and slightly to the left, due to his right arm being his dominant arm though he could use both to a certain degree.

The male approached closer, in his shadow, impressing Naruto in how easily they found that weakness of his. If he were to think about it however, he would realize that it could have simply been dumb luck that he used that weakness. Regardless he approached with skill found in most Chuunin, rarely Genin, making Naruto wonder idly if he was in disguise, or simply stronger than he let on. Turning to face him Naruto noticed his headband bore the symbol of Sound, solving one mystery on who targeted him but not the specifics.

"Who the hell are you?" it wasn't an eloquent question, but Naruto felt he should feign ignorance, in an attempt to draw him out long enough to locate his teammates and deal with them. It wouldn't do for him to easily be 'apprehended' by a couple of strong Genin simply because he overlooked them, as he didn't think he could live down the ridicule.

The ninja didn't answer, instead charging at Naruto with an out-reached arm, as though he was trying to grab him, which Naruto side-stepped easily, thrusting his own leg out in an attempt to trip the ninja. It succeeded, surprisingly, but when Naruto went to follow through with a kick the ninja disappeared before his eyes, leaving a thin, shining strand in his wake, earning a raised eyebrow from Naruto. Gingerly kneeling, he picked up the strand, thinking the ninja had attempted a quick _Kawarimi_ to escape and used that as his focal point, wondering where he could have disappeared to.

If he had placed the strand a safe distance away from the brunette, it meant the charge was a ruse, to lull him into a sense of false security. Off-hand, Naruto knew of no Genin that would use such a tactic, which meant the Genin had charged him in an attempt of a lucky victory, and _Kawarimi_'d when he realized he was going to lose. However, it still didn't answer where the ninja was, as no chakra signatures were detectable for a hundred yards. Which meant either he was hiding a hundred yards away, or he was much more skilled in hiding chakra signatures than Naruto himself.

Dropping the strand, Naruto stood and did a quick string of seals, muttering _Eye of the Beholder _under his breath, watching his surroundings intently. The technique was supposed to unveil and dismantle all manner of illusions that were used inanimate objects as their focal point, however it was ineffective against illusions placed on humans and animals, making it useless against _Tsukiyomi_ and ilk. A minute passed in silence, as Naruto surveyed the forest and noting no difference in it's appearance, causing him to dispel the technique and wonder what happened not five minutes earlier.

The team seemed like they wanted to attack him, for whatever reason, but it seemed that they had fled the moment he attacked one of their members, as even the second chakra signature was gone, causing Naruto to scoff at their audacity before walking away, stopping only when he felt a new chakra signature spike behind him. Turning, he looked at the forgotten strand with a curious glance, wondering if it had been used as a focal point for a Genjutsu, but banished the thought as _Eye of the Beholder_ would have dispelled it, as that was the focus of the technique.

Sensing someone behind him, Naruto quickly dashed out of the way, earning a slash across his cheek from a kunai, held by the same ninja that had attacked him. He seemed arrogant, from his stance and aura, but Naruto realized he couldn't underestimate him. Whatever he used to avoid detection was pushing Jounin level in skill, and he had a sinking feeling the rest of his team held similar techniques.

"Che, you're pretty good. What's your name?" Naruto asked, his mind running through battle plans a mile a minute, trying to compensate his lack of knowledge regarding the other two combatants with variable plans that could be changed on the fly. He wasn't as good as Shika, as his skill relied on planning for an entire team, but for Naruto it worked wonders as it put all his skills to the test, and reduced casualties on his side.

"Karin," instinctively Naruto turned around to face the newcomer and received another slash on his still-bleeding cheek, earning a grimace from the brunette at the pain of the fresh wound growing. He wasn't by any means invulnerable to pain, but it always hurt more when a fresh wound got bigger.

Attempting to counter the slash caused Karin to back flip out of range of his attack, Naruto barely holding back a snarl of anger at how easily he was losing. While he had only sustained two minor wounds in less than a minute, he knew that thinking of them as Genin, or even Chuunin, made him assume he could use matching strength to draw the fight out. But it was apparent that they were a lot more skilled than a run-of-the-mill Chuunin, possibly bordering on Jounin level, and would require him to face them as such.

Closing his eyes, he slowed his breath, using chakra to enhance his 'sixth sense' of perception that all ninja had, painting a clear picture of the battleground. In his mind the trees bore a dark green color, while the ground was painted a light brown and humans a bright blue color. Opening his eyes, he noticed that his two enemies stood in their spot, wondering what he was planning. Sensing another attack from behind, Naruto shot his arm out and grabbed something, throwing it in front of him, shocking the two other Sound ninja.

"_Cloak of the Shade_, impressive," Naruto praised, visibly awed by the usage of the Jounin level Genjutsu. It was a simple Genjutsu in theory, which made you invisible to various degrees depending on the amount of darkness available. At night it was unbreakable, as it used the users body as the focal item, but during the day it was useless unless an adequate amount of shade was available. There was other minor details about the technique, such as being unable to hold it for more than a minute before it broke and required it to be preformed again, but was generally overlooked due to being able to kill the enemy in a single, well-placed strike. It was also possible to keep it up while attacking, however most ninja lacked the skill to keep it up, as it required a good amount of chakra to keep active when moving.

Now that he had managed to shake his enemies significantly, he got a good look at their builds and looks, unconsciously doing math that he couldn't comprehend on paper that dictated possible maneuvers against them in combat. His first opponent stood tall for a twelve year old, towering over the others at five-foot six-inches, with a lean build, while Karin was the shortest, at almost five foot with a lithe build, and the final opponent was just slightly taller than Karin, with a more heavy-set build used for Taijutsu.

As one they disappeared and attacked Naruto at three different spots, his head, midsection, and knees, avoiding the first two attacks by dashing to the side while the third attack connected solidly with the back of his knees, sending him to the ground hard. They didn't let up in their assault, attacking him even when he was prone on the ground, trying to rush to get to his feet to defend himself, but an attack aimed at his midsection forced the air from his lungs, and sent him to his knees where they finally let up after a minute of merciless attacks. A number of his bones had been broken, and a good number of his organs were damaged considerably, but Naruto had a shit-eating grin on his face, perplexing the trio but they didn't comment on it.

"You've lost. Your life now belongs to Orochimaru-sama, and him alone. Attempting to fight for independence will only end in another loss for you, so give up all thoughts on trying to escape and look forward to working with Orochimaru-sama. We were trained solely for tracking down and defeating all who pose a threat to Orochimaru-sama, so do not feel bad having lost to us, as many others like you have suffered similar defeats. You will join-," Karin was cut off from her lecture by a chuckling Naruto, who still had his shit-eating grin on his face, but it had deepened considerably from her little speech.

"What's so funny? You lost, you don't have the right to laugh," the tall boy asked, confused and irritated that they weren't being taken seriously. It was a curse and blessing at the same time, as it allowed their enemies to underestimate their skill, which lead to easy victories against most Jounin they fought. And those who did take them seriously lost because of their skill when working as a team, which was rumored to top even the Sanin at the age of twelve.

"Me? Lose? Not against you amateurs, not a chance in hell," Naruto chuckled darkly, staring intently at Karin. "You say you were trained for hunting down and dealing with Jounin level threats?" he asked politely, his grin lessening slightly.

"Yes, that is correct, why?" she asked, confused on why he would ask such an obvious question. He was rumored to be around the level of a Chuunin, according to the report by Kabuto-sama, and it was apparent that he was judging by the ease that he was defeated by them.

"Tell me, have you heard of a group called 'Akatsuki'?" ignored her question, he proposed his own, buying enough time so his bones would heal properly. It was slower than when he was younger, but still faster than most people. Organs would heal at a faster rate than bones, so he wasn't worried about them, even if one or more of them croaked in the middle of battle. Sure, it would hurt like hell to regrow it, but he'd live. Given, of course, if he lived through this next fight.

"What does that have to do with anything?" it was rhetorical question, meant for dramatic pauses and actions that would allow for easy defeat of enemies. But Naruto was never known for following unspoken rules, and answered as such.

"Nothing, actually, I just like seeing your cute face get a confused look on it," Naruto gloated, standing and cringing as he felt his bones pop, protesting the fact they healed while he was on his knees. "Now then, shall I explain why you're going to lose through words, or should I just kick your collective asses here and now?"

Instinctively they took a step back, wondering what he was planning. They didn't fear death, or that's what they told each other at night, but they had never had an enemy get up after a fight and ask for more punishment. It was enough to think he was touched in the head, and the tallest pointed it out.

"You're kidding, right? We just kicked your ass once, and with ease I might add," he arrogantly called him out, confident he could beat him if it came down to a one on one fight.

"I won't deny I got my ass kicked. You won, fair and square. However, you made a mistake in the last fight, one that I believe you'll repeat in this fight," Naruto informed them, rolling his shoulder to get pop the bone back into place in a dramatic motion.

"And what mistake was that?" he asked, falling into an offensive position, his teammates following suit.

"You didn't keep attacking until I was dead," without warning, Naruto disappeared before their eyes, prompting them to take to the trees preforming the seals for _Cloak of the Shade_ in the air. After all, the tactic had worked once before, so it was bound to work again as they showed Jounin level chakra control that was usually reserved for the ANBU.

Naruto appeared less than a foot from where he initially stood, confidence rolling off him in waves that made the trio second guess their skills for a split second before ignoring the psychological trick. It was simple, to become more confident than your opponent in an easy attempt to win without moving. Most lesser Genin and Chuunin lost to other Genin and Chuunin because they were unable to match the confidence with their own, but the four in the forest were easily matching each others power.

"Heh, you aren't half bad, for kids. However, just because you can match my power, doesn't mean you'll win. Someone I know, once told me that all the numbers in the world mean jack shit if you can't put 'em to good use. Lets put that to the test," Naruto disappeared again, appearing behind the tallest male, knocking him from the tree, and following through with knocking the other two members towards the ground as well. They composed themselves quickly, staring at Naruto with varied looks of anger and confusion on how he easily found them.

"_Cloak of the Shade_ is a great Genjutsu, provided you can use it to it's strengths. However, it's got it's weaknesses in it's strengths, most notably requiring you to not move a muscle, otherwise the technique wavers and breaks. You got me the first time around because I didn't expect you three to be on level with an average Jounin. Now though, I can tell you're simply skilled Chuunin. When you fight someone, you use your teamwork, skill, and numbers to outwit and outlive your opponent. There wasn't something Orochimaru incorporated in his plan when you were trained though," Naruto lectured as they each separately tried to come up with a battle plan on how to take him down. They had been training and fighting together long enough to communicate without words, and simply slight movements. It was handy against opponents who put up more of a fight, like Naruto was right now.

"What was it that Orochimaru-sama didn't take into account?" Karin asked, feigning curiosity. She wasn't concerned on what the snake messed up on, as the longer the three stayed alive, the more likely they could escape from under his rule and wander the world. They were grateful for all he had done, they really were, however they didn't like constantly fighting for their lives, and all the stress and paranoia that stemmed from constantly fighting strong enemies.

"Yeah, what is it that he didn't think of but you somehow did?" the short male pipped up, earning a raised eyebrow from Naruto.

"My elemental affinities," at once three cages molded around the three ninja, catching them off-guard and making them shout out in surprise. "Despite the information Kabuto has been feeding the snake bastard, he still knows next to nothing about me. If he did, he would have sent more than one person with a Water affinity and another person with a Wind affinity. As it stands, he sent an Earth, Water, and Fire affinity, which won't be enough to beat me," dramatically Naruto boasted the flaw in the plan, which caused an unusual reaction, mostly in making the trio burst out laughing. Instead of being rude, Naruto waited for the laughter to fade away before Karin replied to his arrogant claim.

"Orochimaru-sama knows of your Earth affinity, and trained us sufficiently to take you down. You simply played into our plan because you underestimated us," at once the prisons crumbled away, the short male using his Water affinity to dissolve most of the earth while Karin used her Earth affinity to make the rest crumble. Once free the tall male launched a _Goukakyu_ towards Naruto who side-stepped the fireball with ease, bumping into the short male as he used an open palm to strike one of his kidneys, forcing Naruto to take a step further to lessen the damage.

Karin was there to meet him with a fist covered in rocks, connecting with his stomach in another attempt to disable him. It failed however, when Naruto caught her fist mid-air and tossed her twenty feet away, rushing after her in an attempt to knock her unconscious but was interrupted by the Fire male and a flaming kunai, which forced him to jump to the left where he was again met by the Water male. This time the palm connected cleanly with his kidney, with Naruto being held in place by a slightly-winded Karin who seemed to have trouble concentrating.

"It hurts, doesn't it. Bad enough to make you pass out, isn't it," the male taunted, bringing his palm back for another blow, this time aimed at one of Naruto's lungs. "If I can disable one of your kidneys and make you on the verge of passing out, imagine what'll happen if I disable one of your lungs!" Surprisingly, it connected, forcing Naruto to his knees as he attempted to circulate chakra through the lung in an attempt of forcing out the invading chakra. It was one of the trademark techniques of Water-aligned ninja, to disable organs and muscles for clean kills and captures, which made them sought after in ANBU and Hunter-nin teams.

"Karin, are you alright? You look like you're gonna pass out," the Fire male asked, Naruto forgotten for a moment. It was enough, however, for Naruto clear his head and come up with a plan on escaping, however it was tricky.

"Ye-yeah, I'm fine," she said, stuttering but regaining her confidence quickly as she became aware of her surroundings again. "The bastard hit me with some kind of freaky Genjutsu that messed with my head but I managed to do away with it. I'll be fine, I think," admittingly, she didn't know if it was a Genjutsu or not, but didn't voice it to her teammates. It felt like it, but the visions just seemed real to her, and obviously had shaken her but she waved off the concern.

"When we get back to Otou, I want you to see a doctor, okay? I know Orochimaru-sama will not like the idea of you seeing a doctor, but I don't think he'd throw us away that easily," he expressed, a tone of concern clearly lacing his words. Naruto coughed a bit louder than necessary, getting the attention of the duo as the Water male placed seals on his body that would restrict a significant amount of his chakra flow.

"Is he ready for transport Zaku?" Karin asked, looking around the clearing quickly to ensure there was no eavesdroppers or would-be heroes that would attempt to rescue the brunette.

"Yeah, just finished putting the seals on him. I'll have to put them on again in a day or two, but that'll be when we're well out of range of the sentries. Can't risk using a large amount of chakra in this middle of the forest, not with ANBU wandering around," he answered, checking the seals over a third time to assure himself that they were, indeed, working and on him. It never hurt to be extra diligent in the applications of seals, as they often wore off for no reason at all, given the volatile nature of chakra.

"Good, Dosu, grab him and lets get the hell out of this forest. It's giving me the creeps," Karin ordered, the tall male grabbing him but not before he head-butted him, knocking him on the ground and forcing Karin to intervene and throw him off Dosu, kicking him in the stomach in the process to force him to comply. "You don't learn, do you?"

"Heh, they always tell me that I got a head thicker than steel. However, I like think of myself as a free-form planner than a head-strong person," Naruto admitted gleefully, not fazed by the kick to his stomach. A grin appeared on his face which caused an unsettling feeling in Karin's stomach the more she stared at it.

"What the hell are you smiling out about?" Zaku questioned, clearly not understanding the bizarre turn in events. Normally when a ninja was caught, they would struggle but not to the extent that Naruto was struggling. It seemed as though it were a futile game, designed to see how badly he could annoying his captors before escaping through some incomprehensible method.

"I'm picturing your guy's faces when I make you shit your pants," confessing sadistically, Naruto focused on the seals keeping most of his chakra sealed. Applying and breaking seals was generally tricky work, however since these were placed hastily, there was obvious flaws he used to break them by easing his chakra into the holes enough to overwhelm the invading chakra. The aftermath was instantaneous, with Naruto standing and quickly disabling the three Sound ninja before they could react to him breaking free.

"Why do you keep fighting to escape? You always lose to us, so it's pointless to fight your inevitable destiny," Dosu asked, attempting to get him to see that Naruto would always lose against the trio.

"I fight...so no one else has to. So my friends don't have to dirty their hands with the blood of war victims, so they can die in relative peace. And I won't accept a loss, even if it means death for me," it was a somber statement, not carrying any of Naruto's previous humor or glee, shaking the trio, as they didn't expect such a statement from someone. Slowly, the trio rose to their feet, trying to get blood flowing through their limbs as Naruto had slowed it significantly with a few precise blows earlier.

"Even if you fight for a noble cause, you won't win against us!" Zaku moved without much sound, attempting to take Naruto's head off with a single slash from a kunai covered in water. It was stopped mid-blow however, but an invisible force, shocking the attackers.

"When I told you that Orochimaru knew nothing of my skills, or affinities, I was right. He doesn't know each of my aces, and it disappoints me that I have to show this one here. You honor me with your skills however, and will have the pleasure of being taken seriously by, even if you don't realize it now," with a wave of his hand Zaku was sent flying, rolling on the ground as soon as he landed to soften the blow but it was futile. Before Zaku had landed, Naruto was rushing through a string of complicated seals, focusing on one of the techniques he had created using his Wind affinity years ago.

"_Rasengan: Shuriken_," before the trio, a ball of chakra came into focus in the palm of his hand before it split into an uncountable number of shuriken made of chakra. The original form was unwieldy and did a number on his body, which made him rethink how he went about using the technique. In a true fight, he couldn't break away enough to use a clone to create a _Rasengan_, let alone the improved version, so he sat on improving it for months until it came to him during a spar with Konan and set out to implement his idea. A year later he managed to perfect the mechanics of the technique and only a month later was he able to use it successfully in a fight, but only used the technique when he had to, as the stress was less significant than the original version but still there nonetheless.

Currently the shuriken floated in front of Naruto, who directed the shuriken with his hand, showing the main flaw of the technique; it required direction from his hand, which could be a hassle in a true fight, without a proper distraction. Against these three however, it wasn't necessary, as they had been 'put to the test' during the numerous scuffles and as such were winded significantly.

"Hn, if you're going to show one of your techniques then **I'm** going to show one of **mine**," Zaku stated eagerly, rushing through a string of seals, stopping only when something caught his eye. A shuriken made from the _Rasengan_ was flying towards him with frightening speed and he barely avoided being sliced by it, watching as it traveled past where he stood and went through a tree behind him, cutting it cleanly in half and causing it to crash to the ground.

"I do not recommend standing in one spot. Nor do I recommend taking a blow from one of them either, as it's bound to make a mess," Naruto informed them, waving his hand and watching as the shuriken closed in on the trio, their faces losing their courage and eying them with barely-repressed fear. Another wave of the hand brought them closer, and they couldn't contain their fear anymore, wishing to be elsewhere at the current moment. They weren't easy ninja to spook, as they'd been in tight situations before, but the ease that Naruto displayed such power frightened them, and could even frighten most seasoned ninja, especially taking his age into account.

A third wave of his hand brought the shuriken close enough to break the skin of Karin's cheek, earning a squeak from her as she suppressed her cry of pain. Like dominoes more wounds appeared on the trios body, until the clearing was filled with an unnatural amount of blood, strangely leaving Naruto as the only thing untouched as he sighed deeply and let his hand drop limply to his side; the nerves frayed and requiring a number of hours to repair themselves. Until then he would have to wait, as he didn't wish to test his luck, and found a tree outside of the clearing and sitting down at the base, leaning against it as he feel an unknown exhaustion sweep him and forcing him to fall asleep.

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A/N: And another late chapter finished. Again, sorry for the lateness of the update (a week later than I planned), but I can only do so much when it's just me and no beta. If you are interested, leave a review, PM, or email. Whichever is more convinent. Review responses to follow.

Cloud Jones: Expect Hinata to show up after the Chuunin Exams are over. Unsure of a chapter number, but I'd estimate about chapter 13 is when she'll first show up.

Broken Sexed Up Bloody Kitten: Sasuke wishes to 'save' his brother because he was strong-armed into joining Akatsuki. It deviates greatly from canon, and isn't a cliche I've seen in all my years reading fanfiction (doesn't mean it doesn't exist though). It'll be elaborated and explained in greater detail in later chapters however.

tiggerpal07: I tried to slow that chapter (and this one as well) as much as possible, since I have a bad habit of rushing through stories with too many time-skips, which then make it impossible for me to continue. Good to know it was the pace I intended though =D .

To everyone else who reviewed; thank you. I really enjoy reading the reviews even if they're single words.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Really late update, but better now than never. This chapter was supposed to be posted a few weeks ago, but my computer kinda decided to stop working, one part after another, so it delayed me working on the chapter for about a week. Add to the fact I had to basically start over anew (I actually had a good draft saved, before my computer crashed), and it was slow getting back into the swing of things. The good part is though, that I already have a good amount of the next chapter finished, I just need to finish them up and do major revisions before sending it off to my new beta. =) Anyways, this chapter was fun to write, and a bit challenging as I had to go back and constantly do revisions to make characterzations proper. So enjoy =).

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The sound of a branch breaking underfoot awoke Naruto with a start, as loud as a gunshot due to the vicinity, causing him to jump and slip into a fighting stance out of habit before realizing he was in the Forest Of Death and relaxing slightly. Having spent a good amount of time in it years ago, he knew that the forest was possessed and enjoyed to mess with the perceptions and instincts of ninja through unknown methods.

Another snapped branch forced him to investigate the source of the sound, massaging his hand to ease the pain from using the _Rasengan: Shuriken_ technique hours earlier, the hand in question not fully healed but a far cry from unusable. Stepping back into the blood-caked clearing brought him face-to-face with a blood-covered Karin, who was breathing heavily from a number of wounds that were hiding underneath the sheen of blood covering her body. A quick glance over to the source of the blood made Naruto realize what had happened when the shuriken had attacked the trio, even if Karin was ignorant of it at the current moment.

"They sacrificed themselves," stating obviously, Naruto looked over Karin intently, who stared at him as though she didn't hear what he said, trying to figure out if she had sustained any significant wounds that would require medical treatment right that minute. He wasn't capable of preforming anything beyond a crude healing technique that dealt with flesh wounds, but he was able to apply it creatively and use it to deal with other injuries that weren't fatal or near-fatal. He just hoped that she had sustained superficial wounds as he didn't wish to burn a large amount of chakra on healing her and draw the attention of the ANBU that would no doubt be on their way here after his initial show of force.

Nodding dumbly, Karin didn't attempt to open her mouth to acknowledge his statement, instead trying to gather enough chakra to heal up her bruised organs but failing to grasp it properly; causing her to grunt in pain as her attempts of subduing the pain through a genjutsu failed and subsequently reintroduced her body to the pain.

Noticing her knees started to buckle from the pain, Naruto swiftly caught her, holding her body up through one of her armpits, putting all of her weight on him which she was silently thankful for. She knew it was wrong to thank her enemy, but it was obvious that the brunette wasn't going to let her die, or at least not right away. What she didn't understand however, was why he intended to keep them alive, or tried to at least.

Sensing her shift slightly, Naruto wrapped his free arm around her waist, "Don't say anything. We need to get out of here before the ANBU show up." Without warning he dashed off, arm tightly wrapped around her slender waist and putting a significant distance between them and the blood-covered clearing.

Minutes passed as he pushed his body as much as he could, putting over a mile in distance from their current location and the scene where Karin and her team had ambushed the brunette. Stopping near a river with a cave a short distance from the bank, Naruto set her down gently on a rock outside of the cave, taking notice of their surroundings, spotting potential ambush points and trap-placement points before turning to face her.

"You stay here. I need to gather some wood and herbs to keep you warm and treat your wounds. After that we'll have to wash all that blood off you," Naruto ordered, Karin nodding dumbly as she knew there was nothing she could, as it took all of her conditioning and skills to not shout out in pain. Taking her silence as acknowledgement, Naruto created a couple of _Kage Bunshin_ to assist in tracking of wood and herbs, loitering close to the edge of the make-shift camp, absently watching Karin while his mind was elsewhere.

Her allies unnecessary sacrifice was shocking to him. In his home-dimension, he found out that the initial Oto trio didn't trust one another, all three arrogant and confident they could come out on top, though that proved to be their downfall. While he subconsciously knew they were vastly different from his home-dimension, he couldn't help but be surprised when they selflessly sacrificed themselves to spare Karin. It shook him up internally, though he wouldn't admit it to anyone.

To sacrifice oneself without thoughts of the outcome....was an act of compassion to Naruto, one that made him realize that the people in this dimension that might be more inclined in helping deal with the threat of Akatsuki, Orochimaru, and Madara, though he wasn't going to hold his breath.

As he walked back into the make-shift camp he ordered a pair of clones to get to work on making a campfire while dispelling the others, sitting himself next to a still-despondent Karin who didn't seem to acknowledge his presence but he knew she was aware of it. She and her teammates had displayed skill fit for regular Jounin, and to have it at the tender age of twelve spoke a good amount about her and her capabilities.

"Why did you save me?" not the oddest question Naruto had been asked, but he was taken back by the sudden action of her talking; she hadn't uttered a single word since he had found her, and didn't expect her to speak right away given the circumstances. As he started grinding the various herbs up in a make-shift bowl, he mulled over his response.

"You were looking for an out of your contract with Orochimaru, and I gave you and your allies the tools to break free. However, they were too hasty, too impatient, and their death is ultimately their own fault. If-" he was interrupted by a slap to the face from Karin, whose eyes seethed with unbridled rage, her eyebrows furrowed in what he assumed was a glare.

"Bad mouth them, and I'll rip your fucking tongue out," Naruto was impressed internally. Despite all the pain her body was in, she had managed to look past it and strike him, forcing him to set aside the half-ground herbs and stare at her intently. In a show of intimidation, he reached out and grasped her chin in his hand, lifting her face enough to inspect her features in greater detail, though the dried blood covered most of the noticeable features. The act also restricted her throat movements, silencing her as the effort to speak would put too much stress on her body, and she felt as though she was going to pass out from the pain.

"I can't say I blame you for striking me, Karin of the clan of the Hawk. If I were in your situation, I have no doubt in my mind that I would react similar. But, what I say is true; they were too impatient, too hasty in throwing away their lives to save yours. If they had thought logically about their situation, you three could have escaped. Even if you did not, the _Shuriken_ would have simply wounded you, not killed. I had no intention of killing those two, as you three have great potential. Potential I intend to harness and use. Potential that Orochimaru doesn't realize, and I intend to steal from him," Naruto lectured softly, running his thumb along Karin's bloody cheek, scraping some of the blood off in the process though it was a gentle action, done to calm the girl. Releasing her chin, Naruto went back to work on grinding the herbs, withdrawing a tube of an oily substance and pouring a small amount into the bowl, mixing it while Karin sat there, stunned.

"But....how? How do you intend on harnessing my potential? I....I didn't even know I had potential," she trailed, shocked at the sudden turn in events and still in disbelief.

"Your skill level is on-par with that of an average Jounin. If you were a Jounin, it would be expected, but since you are a Genin, it shows you have great potential to become a very powerful ninja. I intend to show you your potential, but not until you've healed enough to begin training properly. Now, lets get you cleaned up, before we attract some not-so-nice visitors," he informed her, helping her stand and slowly leading her to the river, placing her on a rotting stump near the riverbank.

Forming a large bowl from the mud using his affinity, Naruto dipped it river, filling it halfway before removing it and placing it at the base of the stump, soaking his hands in the cold water for a minute before extracting them and running them through Karin's blood-soaked locks. Periodically washing his hands of the blood he removed, they sat in silence, Karin feeling slightly relaxed whenever Naruto would massage her scalp lightly, while the brunette reminisced of the times he reciprocated the same action with Ino, back in his home-dimension.

As he finished his ministrations on her hair, he turned Karin enough so she was directly facing him, a light blush on her face as well as a look of content, though Naruto ignored it for the most part as he placed his hands back in the water and went about removing the blood that was caked onto her face. While removing the blood, Naruto could feel the heat emanating from her cheeks, earning a raised eyebrow from the brunette as he stared at Karin innocently, deepening her blush as her heart started racing for an indeterminable reason. Running his thumb along her warm cheek, Naruto considered the ramifications of his actions if he acted on the thoughts that were swirling in his head.

On one hand, he could bridge the gap and use Karin's emotions against herself to convince her to join him in taking down Akatsuki and Orochimaru. It was an underhanded technique in Naruto's opinion, but he knew it was the most reliable method of getting her to see his side of things, as it would form a sort of 'hero worship' similar to her attitude towards Sasuke in his home-dimension. The only difference being is Naruto wouldn't treat her as simply a means to the end, as he knew she would be invaluable in the future.

As he considered the other method of gaining her trust and loyalty, Karin mustered up her courage and leaned forward, in a not-so-subtle hint of her intentions, before Naruto focused back on reality;hiding his shock at how easy it would be to get her to join him in taking on Orochimaru and the Akatsuki before leaning in giving her the kiss she clearly wanted. It lasted less than a minute, but it gave Naruto time to consider what he was doing a second time.

'...why did I do that? Why did I kiss Karin? I mean, I know that she's as much to blame as I am, but seriously, why did I kiss her? I won't deny I liked it, hell, I'd make this a day-to-day occurrence if I could get away with it, but is it really a good idea to be locking lips with someone I don't know? Ignoring the fact I technically know a bit about her from my dimension, of course,' he thought to himself as he pulled back from the kiss, watching as Karin's eyes danced with a dreamy content though he didn't say anything to destroy the mood.

Pouring out the dirty water from his make-shift bowl, Naruto refilled it, washing his hands in the river in the process before turning to face Karin, whose eyes still held the content they held minutes earlier, though he noticed it was lessened. Creating a few _Kage Bunshin_ absentmindedly, he motioned for them to help her stand, one holding her in place to prevent her from falling while another removed her clothing and went about cleaning it in the river while Naruto ran his hands over Karin's back, earning a yelp of surprise at the sudden action.

When she didn't say anything regarding being nude around Naruto, he set about cleaning her back, massaging wounds that looked fresh, earning a tense muscle from Karin if it was, and a slight flinch if it was an old wound. She didn't say a single word while he was washing her back, nor did she say a word when he turned her to clean her front, though he noticed she blushed deeply as he had uncompromising view of her growing chest.

As he was cleaning a shallow wound located her left shoulder, he was certain she was going to say something, as he could feel her heartbeat quicken and the muscle tense under his hand, but she remained quiet even after stopping for a minute and looking at her with a questioning glance, continuing only after she shook her head. A similar action repeated, when he was cleaning a wound on her right thigh, and again she shook her head, though Naruto knew she wanted to say something, she just didn't wish to embarrass herself in front of him.

Finishing the act, he motioned for one of his clones to replace her clothing with it's clothing, saving her the embarrassment of someone wandering upon their camp with Naruto clothed and Karin unclothed, which he figured she was grateful for. He never had to endure the embarrassment of being naked in the presence of someone he was attracted to, or at least not unwillingly and at a young age.

He lead her back to the camp, where the fire was burning vigorously, hitting the duo with a solid wall of heat while illuminating the trees in a thirty foot radius. If someone where to wander in their general direction, they would no doubt be ambushed but Naruto wasn't going to fault a clone for being efficient.

"Great, now if someone wanders in this area, they'll be able to see us, and we won't be able to see them," Karin spoke up through gritted teeth, clearly not liking the prospect of other people seeing her naked, but couldn't do much about it besides not have her wounds treated. It was obviously an internal battle for the red head, between dignity and necessity, which necessity won out, in a slim margin.

"That may be, but I would think being caught naked is a lot better prospect than being caught wounded," Naruto told her, leading her to a rock near the fire and sitting her down on it, motioning for the clones to place her clothes a safe distance from the fire to dry them quicker, before the clones disappeared into the tree-line to watch over the duo.

"You're not the one who just bared all to a ninja and his clones," she shot back, begrudgingly sitting down and showing an attitude she didn't have during their fight and his subsequent rescue. The attitude change wasn't surprising to Naruto, since he knew people adopted some odd quirks when dealing with stress and shock, he just didn't expect her to so quickly.

"And yet, you never once complained when I was cleaning your body. Not once," he shot back, pushing her shirt forward enough to administer his make-shift medicine on her back wounds, before turning her to face him and applying to the wounds on her torso, though he knew she wasn't happy about it.

"Stare and I'll kill you, pervert," snapping, she glared at him, doing a complete 180 degree turn from ten minutes ago. Naruto seemed unphazed from her empty threat however, as he'd received them a number of times when administering emergency healing on the battlefield. It wasn't uncommon for the medic-ninja assigned to his group to be attacked first, as they were often any groups lifeline, and more times than not he was the only person who knew enough medical jutsu to patch them up enough so they could administer their own jutsus upon themselves.

"If you kill me, a hardy feat considering you're in no condition to fight and you're outnumbered, then how do you expect to crawl back to your precious Orochimaru-sama? I don't doubt some other team would find you, and they might be more inclined to use you as they please than I. At least with me you'll live through the night," he informed her, done with the application of medicine and using a low-level jutsu to heal the internal damage done to her organs.

Usually, healing organs was tricky, as you could never tell if the chakra would be directed to the organ that was injured, but with Naruto he infused a bit of chakra reserved for his healing factor into the jutsu, allowing it to quickly heal the recipients body. The only downside was it drained a significant amount of Naruto's chakra to heal, usually equal to the amount of chakra a persons body was capable of holding, and more chakra was usually spent on organs than flesh wounds.

As such, Naruto felt a bit light-headed as he finished healing the red-heads body, which she took advantage of, aiming a chop at his neck to disable him and allow her enough time to escape. What she failed to realize was the chop doing nothing, besides lightly bruise the brunette's neck and cause him to push her off the rock, forcing her to cry out in pain as she bruised her freshly-healed wounds.

"You don't listen, do you? I tell you you can't fight me in your condition, and yet you decide to try it anyways," he admonished, standing and rubbing the bruise softly, infusing the muscle with a bit of his chakra to help speed up the already-quick healing process.

Instead of answering, Karin was more focused on the pain that lanced through her body as she relived the injuries inflicted upon her by Naruto hours earlier. She couldn't move, as she was certain that it would only make the pain worse, but she knew that if she cried out in pain, she would be giving him the satisfaction that he had hurt her, and her pride wouldn't allow that to happen.

A snap of his fingers confused Karin, as the pain that coursed through her veins disappeared without warning, causing her to look around and wonder if it was all a dream. The flourishing fire and brunette standing above her brought reality crashing down upon her, realizing that the previous pain was simply a Genjutsu.

"You bastard," she seethed, anger clouding her mind as she wracked her brain and tried to figure out how she could escape. No doubt he had some degrading plan for her, as that always seemed to happen to her; follow one person, or be forced to her worst tortures. Standing slowly, she slowly began to gather enough chakra for a quick escape, but was interrupted by him facing her, eye to eye.

Before she could utter the first syllable of her jutsu, she found her lips were captured by his for a second time, though she noticed he was more forceful in this effort, showing some history behind the intimate act and causing her hormones to flare up a second time, clouding her plans of escape. At first she assumed it was a Genjutsu but after a tense minute she realized it was no illusion. Instead of using cheap tricks, he simply used her body against herself, though she oddly felt no anger regarding that idea.

As he separated his lips from hers, she wrapped her arms around him suddenly, catching him off-guard but he didn't say anything as her lithe body started shaking, from what he didn't know though he could have taken a guess. He opted not to, instead sitting against the rock and letting her rest her body against his as her shaking softened and slowly stopped, a light regular breathing letting him know she had fallen asleep. Deciding against removing her, as he admitted internally he liked the feeling of someone sleeping with his body as a pillow, and had missed it in the years following the destruction of his Konoha. As he stared at the fire, he wondered how he ended up in this position, and how his team was coping with his sudden departure.

---

_Several hours earlier_

"What do we do Shika? It doesn't look like Naruto is going to join us," Sakura asked, clearly nervous about the scene. Behind them lay a pile of debris, mostly parts of trees, with their third member no where in sight though they didn't know whether or not he was under the debris, or waiting for the perfect dramatic moment to step out 'alive' and shock them with tales of grandeur.

When it became apparent that he wasn't going to grace them with his presence, Shikamaru stood from his previously crouching pose, using the time between their narrow escape and the inevitable conclusion of Naruto not showing up to consider their next course of action. Really, it was a no-brainier to the semi-lazy genius, but he felt that thinking of situations calmed the nerves, allowing him to catch otherwise subtle details that could spell fortune or failure.

"We head for the tower. Naruto won't be waiting for us here, if he somehow got separated from us, he'll be heading for the tower as soon as he can. If we're lucky, we can avoid confrontation until the tower, where we can ambush another team and get our required scroll," he dictated, checking his gear for the thirty-ninth time and mentally taking inventory of what he had.

It was a nervous habit of his, and he wasn't one to normally get nervous, but losing arguably their strongest, smartest, and most resourceful member did put him in a confident mindset. While he acknowledged that eventually they'd have to learn to depend on themselves, he wasn't keen on doing it after such short time of being a team, especially in the middle of their first Chunin exam, but it seemed that he was being 'thrown to the wolves' as Naruto put it, and as such had to be confident in his abilities as a ninja and leader.

If he didn't, then how could he call himself a ninja with a straight face?

"Right," she acknowledged, mentally going over her list of techniques and tactics in an attempt to quell her own nervousness. While she wouldn't admit she was as smart as Shika, or as strong as Naruto, she felt she could hold her own, if push came to shove. She just didn't want to do it in the middle of the so-called 'hostile territory', and without the comforting feeling of knowing someone would step in and save her in the nick of time. Childish it might be, but she liked the feeling of Naruto being on her team, the 'number one rookie' as people constantly referred to him as, and knowing he was watching her back made her feel confident enough to take on a Jonin.

Not a word was uttered as they dash off in the general direction of the tower, sticking near the canopy in the forest to avoid intentional confrontation, the 'music' of the forest consisting of distant sounds of fighting, forcing the duo to take a number of long shortcuts to avoid direct confrontation until they arrived in a clearing with no nearby tree to jump to, forcing them to the ground. When they landed solidly on the ground, they looked around the clearing in suspicion, as there was no sunlight peaking through the canopy, meaning it was a Genjutsu.

A branch breaking underfoot gave them a second to dodge in separate directions, narrowly avoiding two swarms of needles, the two landing in defensive positions with kunai drawn, eyes analyzing their surroundings by instinct, trying to find the best defensive positions to lay a turnabout ambush. Their training with Naruto was clearly shining through in how they assessed the situation and began to consider attack options, though it would seem their enemies were just as skilled, if not more so.

Two more swarms of needles impacted where they had stood seconds earlier, with another two tossed while they were in mid-air, forcing them to use _Kawarimi_ to avoid becoming pin-cushions but it seemed the attackers weren't giving up, two of them dashing from the safety of the tree's to attack the two as they fell towards the ground. Shikamaru dodged too slow, receiving a strong right hook across his cheek while Sakura's small, lithe body allowed her to dodge in time, delivering a grazing kick on her attacker in retaliation.

As Shikamaru's body crashed roughly to the ground, Sakura landed softly, before charging her recovering attacker, this time connecting with a solid left hook and ramming her knee into her attacker when they stumbled back, causing it to dissipate into smoke, putting her more on edge than before. Naruto constantly told them that when an enemy seemed too weak to put up much of a fight, it was no doubt a Bunshin. They, Sakura and Shikamaru, knew eventually they would face someone who was as proficient in the technique as their third member but they didn't expect it to be used as easily as the person before them used it, the remaining clone opting to go for Shikamaru as he was sluggish in getting up off the ground from his hard fall.

When the clone was five feet away, it stopped suddenly, incapable of moving while Shikamaru righted himself while staring at the clone intently. Sakura stood thirty feet away, her left arm outstretched while chakra arced above and below her flesh, paralyzing the attacker and giving the brunette enough time to regain his composure.

Being the stronger, physically at least, of the duo, Shikamaru wasted no time in driving his fist into the clones fist, eying it carefully as he visibly recoiled but didn't 'pop' out of existence, proving his theory correct.

"You're not a _Bunshin_," he stated obviously, watching the body crumble to the ground as Sakura released her jutsu and calculating the best place for the remaining two enemies to launch a counter-attack, given the circumstances. Sakura did the same, her eyes scanning the trees while she unconsciously rubbed feeling back into her left arm.

The technique was originally designed to forcefully dispel _Bunshins_ of all types, aside from mud and earth types, but could double as a technique to disable a humans nervous system. The only real downside was it wrecked havoc on the coils in her arm, which made it impractical behind enemy lines due to the time it took to reconstruct the coils.

Repeating a familiar pattern, two swarms of needles rained down upon the two, forcing them to jump out of the way only to be intercepted in mid-air by two ninja who assaulted them with a flurry of fists and feet. Shikamaru attempted to use _Kawarimi_, but it was dispelled quickly by a punch aimed at his midsection, forcing the air from his lungs and making him lose his grip on the chakra required. Sakura wasn't as lucky, her enemy taking a more sadistic approach and using a kunai to paint her body with blood, narrowly missing several large arteries by mere luck, though the missed attacks made the pain much more unbearable as she crashed to the floor hard. Shikamaru was the first on his feet when he landed on the forest floor, instinctively running through a quick series of seals and slamming his palms onto the hard ground.

"_Earth Barrier: Earth Dome Prison_," he muttered, catching the two off guard when a living entity of mud rose from the ground and covered them with itself, forming a dome used for containing Genin-level enemies. It required a great deal of concentration to preform the technique, oftentimes making it useless in direct combat and was commonly used in distant confrontations or to disable weak enemies like Genin or bandits. If Shikamaru was honest with himself, he didn't see it holding for long, but it would do in a pinch to allow him and Sakura to escape to a safe distance.

As he walked to where Sakura lay prone, he took a moment to assess her wounds, to determine whether or not they were life threatening enough that he would need to perform emergency care to prevent infection or if they should forfeit the exam to get her treated. He knew that Naruto would likely not be happy about them forfeiting, but he wasn't going to risk Sakura's life for a simple chance to be promoted. It didn't sit well with him, to sacrifice a friend and ally for a promotion, something that could be earned outside of the Chunin Exam.

So engrossed with his thoughts, he didn't notice the third member struggle to his feet and throw a kunai at him until it was too late to use _Kawarimi_ or dodge, forcing him to stumble when it lodged itself in his shoulder and cause him to cry out in pain. The lapse in concentration cause the dome of mud to crumble and break, freeing the other two ninja, who looked annoyed that they were kept at bay with a Genin-level technique but didn't comment on it.

One of the ninja, the tallest and probably a male judging from his body type and how he moved, dashed forward and delivered a snap kick to Shikamaru's chest, sending him flying away and land on his back, forcing the kunai to dig even more into his shoulder and intensifying his cry of pain. The other ninja that was trapped, shorter than the injured ninja and Shikamaru's attacker, walked calmly towards Sakura, rifling through a pack attached to her hip, containing spare kunai, shuriken, and their exam scroll.

Extracting it and nodding towards her allies, as she had the body type of a pubescent female, they helped their third member to his feet and started to walk out of the clearing before stopping, hearing an unusual noise. As they turned to face the source, they were visibly shocked to see Sakura standing, blood covering her clothing and still flowing while she panted heavily from the effort exerted to stand and face her enemies.

"Return the scroll, and I might spare your lives," she seethed, anger clouding her mind and overlooking the obvious pain her body was in. Internally she knew she was putting her life in danger by forcing herself to move, but she vehemently defended her actions, citing that she had been too much of a liability to their team for too long, and was going to earn her keep even if it meant her limbs being damaged for years to come.

The tall male muttered something that she couldn't hear, her anger forcing her to tune out the unimportant details as she formulated a battle plan. Tricky as it might be, as she could be putting her body in a comatose state, she was going to fight tooth and nail until she got their scroll back. She wasn't going to let something petty such as her livelihood get in the way of their success, not if she had anything to say about it.

The female stepped forward, her lips moving but no sound reached Sakuras ears as the female shook her head sadly and did a quick string of seals and said the name of the technique. A projectile made of water caused Sakura to instinctively jump out of it's way, her body protesting but it fell on deaf ears as Sakura charged the female, doing a string of seals and striking the females body with a sluggish punch. The female couldn't avoid the punch, due to chakra-infused lightning leaping out and disabling her bodily-movements for a moment. The moment of being unable to move was all Sakura needed, as she delivered the punch to her stomach, the lightning chakra seeping into her body, racing along her enemies chakra coils and attacking the organ that produced the life-giving energy.

As the foreign chakra entered her body, the female couldn't keep a blood-curdling scream from escaping her lips as her body felt as though it was on fire and freezing cold at the same time, the two extremes intensifying for a minute before she dropped dead, the shock forcing her to suffer a heart attack and stroke, followed by the chakra organ shutting down.

Breathing more heavily due to the amount of chakra it took to use the technique, as she was still working on it and it's interactions with the human body, Sakura could only stand still as the tallest male shouted and landed a strong right hook across her cheek, sending her flying away while he dashed to continue assaulting her. A minute passed as Sakura's catatonic body received punch after punch, kick after kick, until the ninja jumped back to avoid a spike made of earth thrust out of the ground, narrowly missing his body. Shikamaru was now the one standing, breathing heavily to make his mind focus more on saving his friend and teammate more than the pain coursing through his body.

While not beaten as badly as Sakura was, he knew it was a feat he had made it to his feet, since his left arm was essentially dead-weight due to how deep the kunai was embedded in his shoulder. He could use it, yes, but it would involve a large amount of pain to use it to use two-handed techniques, forcing him to rely on the more direct, chakra-consuming method of single-handed seals.

The main problem was Naruto had only begun to teach them how to use one-handed seals, so Shikamaru's repertoire of techniques was low, and his experience was just as low as Naruto didn't want them to use single-handed seals against one another due to how unexpected they could be. Shikamaru pushed the memories from the forefront of his mind however, as the enemy ninja, an Ame ninja judging from his headband, rushed through a string of seals before presenting his hands to Shikamaru, the palms facing him.

"_Water Shark Projectile_," instantaneously, the water held by the trio exploded from the bottles containing them, shocking Shikamaru and keeping him rooted on the spot as the shark converged on him, it's jaws wide-open and giving the lazy genius a clear view of the tool of his demise.

When the shark was a foot away from colliding with the shocked brunette, a newcomer dashed in and rescued him, hoisting his body on his shoulder and causing the shark to collide with the ground where Shikamaru stood a moment earlier. The Ame ninja eyed the newcomer suspiciously, obviously formulating either a plan of attack or escape, though Shikamaru didn't know which it was.

As the brunette's shock wore off, he looked up to his rescuer, noting an unfamiliar head of red-hair atop a short stature. Although he couldn't tell what village he was from, he noticed that the red-head wore a light-layer of clothing, making Shika assume he was from a village that was warm all year long though it didn't help pinpoint the newcomers point of birth. Snaking his forearms was intricate tattoos, reminiscent of Kiba's but lacking the dog that tagged along with the ninja.

"Leave your scroll and take your ally. You won't be told twice," the red-head ordered, the Ame ninja eying him before sighing and throwing both Team 7's and his own scroll at the feet of the ninja and leaving with his now-unconscious ally. "Temari, Kankuro, help the girl. I'll help the boy," continuing, a blond female and short black-haired boy emerged from the trees and went to assist Sakura, the girl picking her up bridal-style and carrying her gently into the forest, with the red-head helping Shikamaru to his feet and following the girl.

"Do not worry, you will not be harmed while we are around," Shikamaru felt the comment to be a tad redundant, but didn't say anything as he fell unconscious, wondering where Naruto was and wonder what had befallen him.

----

_Elsewhere_

"I don't know why we must be dishonored and degraded. Are we not enlightened? Does He not bless us? Were we not chosen to partake this mission from the Almighty?" a tall, thin man, covered by the dark of night, wondered aloud. His partner, a shorter figure, ignored his complaining. They'd been traveling for two days straight and he'd had to put up with his incessant comments the entire time, and was close to letting his composure slip enough to 'accidentally' maim him and later tell their leader that they ran into stiff resistance.

"Do you think they suspect anything?" adopting a more serious tone, the first man continued with a question aimed at his partner, who eyed him cautiously, wondering for the hundredth time how he switched demeanors as quickly as he did.

"No. He believes they are as ignorant as they were the day they were birthed. They suspect nothing out of the usual, aside from the fact that they are mobilizing and making preparations for what's to come," the shorter man stated curtly, not breaking his brisk pace.

"Do **you** think you they suspect anything?" asking the question a second time, with an emphasis on the opinion of his partner, the tall man looked around the forest in wonder, rarely having the oppurtunity to be in Fire Country in the dead of night. It was an unusual beauty for the man, but he felt the more unique the beauty, the more enjoyable it was to corrupt it.

"My opinion has no bearing on this mission," his partner said in an even more curt tone. "Now quit with your incessant questions or I'll kill you," he continued in a threatening tone, releasing a small amount of killing intent to get the point across. For ninja of their calibur, it was a small amount, but it did the job in getting his partner to shut up for five minutes, at the least. They walked in silence until dawn, when the sun started to sift through the dense forest surrounding them, earning a comment from the tall man.

"And on the 7th day, He said 'Let there be blood', and indeed there was."

---

A/N: Finally this chapter is done. It took me a little bit but I'm satisfied with the final product and hope you are too. =) Review responses follow.

Edengrave: I'll admit my neglect on the other characters has been apparent in the last few chapters, but luckily my other beta pointed it out and inspired me to write in some nice growth in this chapter. Hope you enjoy it =)

To everyone else not mention: Thanks for the reviews. I do really appreciate that you took the time to review, even if I constantly rehash this statement in each chapter. =)


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: This chapter is unintentionally late. It's been done for a number of days, I just was putting off making edits suggested by my beta **penguiy1104**, even though it takes me less than 5 minutes to fix said edits. Real short chapter here, I'm not gonna lie. It's mostly considered to be a "filler" chapter, designed to get rid of some characters to make way for the events that'll happen in the next few chapters. Next chapter should be up sooner, as this chapter only took forever to write because I detest filler immensely, and I've been waiting to write a major fight scene (that lasts for more than 500 words) for a number of chapters and I'll finally be able to show off some of Naruto (and other characters)'s skills. Review responses at the end of the chapter, as usual.

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Shikamaru felt a strange warmth as he slowly sat up from his prone position on the hard ground, wondering when exactly he fell asleep last night and where, before remembering what had happened before he had fallen unconscious. The fight with the team from Ame, the rescue from the unknown team, Sakura bleeding....

His eyes widened as his mind registered the last thought, making him jump to his feet in a hurry and looking for any sign of pink-hair that would belong to his teammate. However, he was stopped by a head of red-hair, who pushed him with no effort, sending Shikamaru to the ground, earning a small grunt of pain in response.

"Do not worry, friend of Naruto. She is fine, or as fine as can be, at the moment," he stated in simple tone, earning a questioning glance from the lazy-genius. Ignoring his ninja instincts to attack the boy and demand answers, he went with the more peaceful-approach, which he considered the best course of action given his still-healing wounds from the battle with Ame.

"How do you know Naruto?" Shikamaru asked. He had spied the Suna headband around his neck before being pushed, and while he didn't immediately distrust the boy, he was understandably distant towards him given the circumstances.

"We met....under other circumstances. Circumstances that I will not explain either here or now," the red-head told him curtly, walking behind a bunch of trees, while Shikamaru sat on the ground for a minute before realizing he was supposed to follow the Suna ninja. When he got to his feet, he looked around instinctively at his surroundings, noting the fire slowly dying while the rest of the clearing seemed cloaked in darkness, though he didn't mention it.

Walking out from behind the trees, he spotted the familiar pink-hair of Sakura, with a blonde hovering over her body. At first he thought it was Naruto, though he wasn't sure why, but upon noting the satchel of needles, bandages and other assorted instruments he realized it wasn't him, as he never carried such instruments on his person. Sakura looked worse than she had the night before.

Despite the lack of blood covering her body, her skin was now a milky-white, and he could see that there wasn't much treatment that could be administered at the current moment. It made him sick that he couldn't do anything to help her, but he doubted he would be able to help her even if he could. He was sure he'd be too nervous to be of use, though he wouldn't admit it out-loud.

"How is she, Temari?" The red-head asked the blonde, either ignoring the pink-hairs girl lack of clothing or oblivious to it. Said girl looked lucid, not focusing on her teammates presence or the situation at hand.

"A lot worse than she looks, and that's saying a lot, she's lost a lot of blood and I'm not confident in my skills enough to to a transfusion. And that's given one of us is compatible, which I can't guarantee without the proper equipment," Temari said sadly, brushing some hair out of Sakura's eyes gently.

"So then what do you suggest we do?" Gaara asked, looking at Temari directly. It was clear they were out of their league when it dealt with administering care to other people in hostile territory, or at least that's what Shikamaru guessed from Gaara's tense movements and Temari's nervousness.

"Do you have someone on your team that can administer medical treatment?" Temari questioned, directing the question to Shikamaru, who stared at her blankly for a moment before it dawned on him that she was talking to him.

"Uhh, not really. Sakura is our main medic, and Naruto doesn't know many techniques," he answered dumbly, feeling even more inadequate due to not knowing medical techniques besides basic CPR. Internally he made a note to look up some useful techniques to be used in the field, to prevent this situation from repeating in the future.

"Where is Naruto?"

"Uhh, I don't know. We were separated shortly after this exam started, so I don't know where he is. I don't think he could help, even if he **was** here."

"Then you'll have to forfeit the exam, because as it stands now, I can't help her. Her wounds are too numerous and she's lost too much blood. All I can do now is give her painkillers, and even those won't help her be able to move. She's got four fractured ribs, a broken leg, a sprained wrist, and numerous bruised organs. It's a miracle none of them were ruptured from the beating she took," Temari listed off her injuries as she gathered her supplies and stood slowly, leaning on Gaara for temporary support as she got her bearings.

Shikamaru was silent as he contemplated the situation. He knew that it was inevitable they would need to concede defeat in one shape or form, and Sakura's situation was something he wouldn't ignore for the sake of a promotion. One persons life was not worth less than a promotion, especially one who was his friend and teammate.

Without a word, he retrieved the scroll they were given at the start of the exam, taking a deep breath to calm his nerves and opened it, breaking the seal and forfeiting the exam by proxy. It didn't matter to him though, he would suffer torture to save Sakura's life, because without his teammates, his career as a ninja was pointless. What was the point of having power, when you have nothing to use it for?

Smoke filled the clearing as the seal implanted in the scroll unraveled and summoned a bored-looking Konan, who eyed Shikamaru suspiciously as well as their surroundings.

"What did you summon me for? You're not even remotely near the tower," she questioned, her eyes staring deep into Shikamaru's, trying to figure out why she was summoned without the tower nearby.

"I.....we forfeit. Sakura's hurt too badly, and Naruto was separated and hasn't shown up since yesterday," he confessed softly, shame filling him as he admitted they had failed. It wasn't often that he failed at something, but it made him realize he wasn't infallible, and that there was always someone stronger and more prepared than him. It also made him eager and determined enough to prevent such an act from happening in the future, though he would have to wait until Sakura was safe enough that he could spend time alone to train.

Konan looked around the clearing for signs of the pink-haired girl, before spotting her and walking to where she lay, kneeling next to her and inspecting her wounds while making a mental note on Temari's attempts to heal them, running her fingers over particularly nasty wounds. In the process, she earned a visible flinch from the still-lucid Sakura who appeared aware of her surroundings but not in a state of talking. Forming a quick string of seals, Konan placed her hands over the girls exposed torso, chakra seeping from her palms and encompassing a jagged bones pressing against her flesh, forcing it to set with an audible pop.

"That'll make it easier to escort her to the hospital. Fetch me her top, I won't have her going around Konoha with these wounds showing," she ordered, Temari quickly complying and handy her Sakura's bloody top. It looked as though some attempt to clean it was made, but was still soaked in it, though Konan ignored the blood.

Handing the pink-haired girl to Shikamaru, Konan did a longer string of seals, this time summoning a squad of ANBU, who looked at the trio before nodding slightly, two of the four ANBU taking Sakura while the other two positioned themselves both in front of and behind the other two members of Team 7.

Without a word, they left the clearing, leaving the Suna trio to stand around a smoldering fire before extinguishing it and leaving. It wouldn't do to stick around any place in the forest for an extended period of time, as they had learned the hard way.

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_Meanwhile_

"On the 1st day, He said 'Turn your brother into your enemy, as they will aim to destroy all you have accomplished. As shall your sister. Your mother. Your father. I ask of nothing but the deaths of those who would cause my disciples pain and suffering, and give everything in return,' and many were slain in the name of the Lord. And as promised, He blessed those who obeyed his simple wishes beyond their imagination," a tall, thin man, sporting a black cloak with red clouds stitched in the material, chanted in a religious tone much to the annoyance of his partner, a shorter man covered in bandages but sporting the same cloak. He knew he should tell him to get back onto the mission, but after a few 'test' missions with him, he knew that it was required he recite the mantras before going into battle. Otherwise his powers would be weakened significantly.

"On the 2nd day, He said 'There are those who will entice you with false promises. Immaterial gods. Fame. Fortune. Those who do not believe I am real. Those who would sooner defile Me than kill their families. Their friends. Their false prophets. Do not harm them, children, as they cannot be shunned because of their fathers teachings. Their mothers. Instead they should be brought upon me. Face to face. I will show them the error of their ways, and they shall be blessed,' and indeed they embraced the Lord as I. And indeed they were blessed those who embraced Him," he continued. His face was one many females would find attractive. Clean-shaven, flawless, charismatic smile. The only alien feature were his eyes. They held untold amounts of fanatical knowledge, knowledge that dictated his every move, however unholy, however brutal.

The mantras were interrupted however, when a trio of young ninja, no doubt participants in the Chuunin Exam, stumbled into their clearing. Their existence was short-lived however, as the bandaged man slit their throats faster than they could comprehend, wiping the blood from a kunai on one of their shirts, not paying attention to what village they hailed from They were sent as a distraction, though they were permitted to kill anyone who got in their way, and as such the bandaged man took no pleasure from their deaths.

He wasn't a sadistic man, unlike his partner, and only took a life when he had too. Otherwise he avoided killing a person unless there was no other choices available. It was unheard of for a S-rank Missing-nin to have a conscience and a set of morals, but he paid no attention to what was said about him, or his rank. Neither did the leader of Akatsuki, when he approached him about joining their organization, after doing some menial tasks to prove their worth and loyalty. His partner, on the other hand, was a whole different story, though why he was approached to join Akatsuki eluded the man to this day, but he didn't ask. It was of no concern to him as it was, who was and wasn't accepted into the group.

"We're leaving," he spoke, interrupting his partners mantras, his tone assertive and commanding. It surprised the partner significantly, as it was the first time he'd been ordered by the man, but he knew to obey. It had been made clear that the bandaged man was the one who made orders in the duo, as specifically the leader had told him that he was to be obeyed.

Standing, he started to follow the bandaged man, but not before looking at the dead bodies of the Genin his partner had killed effortlessly, something telling him that the scene was off. The bodies reacted realistically when he tapped them with his foot, but he couldn't shake the feeling that they weren't real. The bandaged man eyed his partner curiously, but didn't say a word, knowing the feeling. They had put up a strong Genjutsu to keep Genin from stumbling upon them before they were given the signal to attack, which meant either a rogue group of ANBU had stumbled across them, or they were illusions.

An incoming kick alerted him to the presence of someone else, hastily dodging the attack while his instincts scanned the area, looking for more attackers. It took a highly skilled ninja to sneak up on a S-Rank ninja, skills that were reserved for ANBU and Jounins, and even the Kages. Seeing as the Hokage was in Konoha however, he ruled out that possibility, as they would easily been killed by the Hokage if that had been the case.

A second attack forced him to dodge, this time it was easier due to the slower speed though he had to dodge a follow-up attack in the form of rocks flying towards him. His kunai made quick work of the rocks, though he had to drop his kunai as it had been mutilated from deflecting and destroying the rocks.

His partner was sitting back, hastily finishing his mantras so he could enter the fray and fight evenly with their attackers. The first attack was a tall boy, sporting dark-brown hair and a spiteful glare, while the second was a shorter female with red hair and a determined look.

"What's Akatsuki doing here?" the boy asked, seething at the two. His friend seemed shocked that they were fighting Akatsuki, but it faded quickly as she assessed the two, disappearing and reappearing near his partner, her fist covered in rocks and aimed at his mid-section.

Thinking quickly the bandaged man attempted to intercept her attack, but was distracted by the boys aggressive assault, a right cross that sent him off-balance, forcing him to acrobatically put distance between him and the boy. It was obvious that he was the stronger of the two, though that didn't mean the girl was weak, judging from the ease she displayed in parrying the partners counter-attacks.

"I'll ask this once more. What's Akatsuki doing here?" another punch was thrown, this time blocked by the bandaged man who again put distance between the two combatants. As the boy rushed towards the man, he extracted a small sickle from within his cloak, slipping into a defensive stance to combat the boy.

When he was close enough, the man swung at the boy's chest, intending to take off his head when he predictably ducked to avoid a fatal strike aimed at his head, but was shocked when the boy disappeared in a puff a smoke, making the Akatsuki trainee rethink his plan of action. He didn't expect the boy to use such advanced techniques and tactics, but knew he shouldn't be surprised. After all, he did manage to sneak up on two Akatsuki members without being discovered.

"How does a boy like you know about Akatsuki?" the man asked, trying to pinpoint his exact position and stall for time for his partner to finish his mantras so he could kill his own target. It was obvious the boy was skilled enough to fight the bandaged man evenly in Taijutsu, so it would take two to overpower him, he hoped.

"Your former member, Shino, told me about you, when I defeated him months ago," the boy answered, his voice coming from three different directions around the man, not giving a specific direction to attack in the process.

"So then you are that boy, Uzumaki Naruto," the man commented, his senses extending enough to detect three Narutos standing in the trees. No doubt two of them were clones, but he was unable to figure out which was real and which one wasn't, making him stall for more time.

"Yes, I am," Naruto confirmed, this time coming from two directions as one of the clones had disappeared though Naruto didn't comment on it.

"Well, I am Tetsuo of the clan of the Boar," the man introduced himself, hoping to get a comment from Naruto, but failing to. However he sensed that another clone had disappeared, and rushed towards the last Narutos position, hoping to catch him off guard and deal a fatal blow. He was surprised however, when the third Naruto disappeared in a puff of smoke, making him dash to the canopy of the trees to avoid an ambush.

The real Naruto however, landed softly on the ground, wondering where Tetsuo had gone when he heard a feminine cry of pain and witnessed Karin's bloody body soar into the clearing, her opponents face bleeding profusely and his eyes filled with intense hatred.

"You're dead brat. You and your little boyfriend are fucking dead!" he shouted, rushing Karin's prone body though she tried to get up and escape but couldn't get up fast enough to dodge. Instead she sat in horror as Naruto intercepted the punch aimed at her, grunting in pain as the fire-infused fist burned away the top layer of his skin though he didn't fall to the ground as expected.

"Heh, is that the best you got? I've gotten hit harder by _toads_," Naruto taunted, watching as the man reared his fist back for another attack, only to receive a stone-covered fist delivered by Naruto.

"Is that all you fucking got? Ha! I've been hit harder by fucking _snakes_!" the man mimicked Naruto's statement, forcing him to narrowly avoid a kunai aimed at his neck. Instead is connected solidly with his left shoulder, digging deep and earning a grunt of pain from the brown-haired boy.

"So you like to use illusions, do you? Well that's-" Naruto's comment was interrupted by another kunai, this time aimed at his stomach, forcing him to jump out of the way, but not before receiving a glancing cut from it as it sailed harmlessly underneath him.

"You're not blessed enough to speak to me, little boy. I'll show you the error of your ways and allow you to be blessed my the Lord," the man's previous demeanor melted into one of calm, calculating focus, forcing Naruto slip into a defensive stance and rework his battle plans. Whenever someone took Naruto serious, they had a tendency of putting him through the ringer, which he appreciated until he noticed he started to narrowly win due to some fluke. This didn't seem like one of those times, as the man showed skill comparable to Pein, and that was never a good thing. It had taken a squad of Jounin to kill Pein, and even then they lost most of the team to kill him.

And seeing as Naruto lacked a squad of Jounin, it seemed apparent that he would be showing some techniques he intended to be kept secret for a while, but he wasn't exactly going to complain. It would be fitting, to defeat the man the same way he defeated Pein.

"Well then, what are you waiting for? Come and 'bless' me, unless you're too much of a pansy," Naruto taunted cheekily, hoping that Karin would be usable in the fight, otherwise he'd be taking a lot more damage than he intended. And that would just not do, as it always took him forever to get the blood out of his clothes.

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A/N: Yay, chapter finished, and only a week later than it should have been. Oh well. Next chapter'll be up sooner than you think, and it'll compensate for this chapters shortness. Now for review responses.

Reechan37: Currently, Naruto and Karin are not an item. In the chapters following next chapters fight, you won't see them acting boyfriend/girlfriend in the typical sense, as they're both professional and won't let what happened in the forest continue. Mostly because at the current point in the story, they're way too young to have a serious relationship of any kind. And also because I have plans for those two, which will be unveiled in later (5+) chapters.

Hiroshima Namikazi: They're two completely original ninjas. More of them will be unveiled in the next chapter, since they'll be fighting the entirety of the Forest of Death once their position is given away.

To everyone else; thanks for the reviews. Even if it was a small amount (compared to the last few chapters at least), it's nice to know that someone out there reads my story. =)


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